Dr. Alex Ampaabeng Writes: No Recruitment Was Done In December; Re-Instate Dismissed Employees
It was heartbreaking when a young man who has been unemployed for years after University but sailed through the GRA recent recruitment sent me a copy of his dismissal letter this afternoon.
He sounded shattered, like the world is coming to an end. His soft voice still rings in my ear with the message, “…. I’m done, God, why me?”
The fact is, this man, and all those recently recruited graduates in the public sector, don’t deserve to go through this. Period!
Contrary to the false reports and the subsequent revocation of appointments, I can confirm that no government ministry or agency was given financial clearance to start recruitment in December 2024.
As the Deputy Minister in charge of issuing financial clearance (as delegated by the Finance Minister at the time), it is disappointing to see the youth who have successfully gone through various stages of the recruitment process being dismissed on the basis of “earning a last-minute and unjustified appointment”.
These actions are nothing but pure political witch-hunting and a way to paint a negative picture of the past administration.
The last mass clearance issued was for TVET, which was on 30th November ’24. Although the TVET services had made their application in April ’24, a couple of back-and-forths led to them receiving their clearance on 30th November. I’ll challenge anyone with contrary information to come out.
For every financial clearance issued, I worked with the relevant ministry and the technical team within the Ministry of Finance to assess the need and the financial implications. In most cases, the numbers were slashed to align with the government’s commitments. A typical example was the TVET services, which requested 8,375 staff but were issued with only 250 to fill urgent staffing needs.
Another case is GRA. At a board meeting (of which I was a member) in July 2024, the management presented a business case for the need to augment the staff strength at GRA in response to the government’s DRM directions. The board agreed with the management for recruitment to start. The process started right after and continued till November ‘ 24. Applicants had to go through a thorough screening, which involved written exams and face-to-face interviews. No chance that all these processes could be completed post-election. Absolutely no chance!
Sadly, all those who were employed have been sacked. How can we subject our young graduates to this psychological trauma?
In all, I oversaw a total clearance of less than 1,300 during my tenure. Yes, less than 1,300 across all government ministries/agencies requiring financial clearance. So, where is this noise coming from? This clearly shows that most of the recruitment started way before I joined the Ministry in April ’24. So how can one describe these appointments as “post elections induced”.
Again, I’ll throw a challenge here for anyone with different data to come out. There’s absolutely NO basis for sacking these youngsters.
I’m sure our HR experts will confirm that recruitment processes for key sectors do take time, and this was exactly what happened.
I call on the president and the key ministers to do the needful and reinstate these appointments. This is the honourable thing to do as a government that promised jobs for the youth [ref the 3 for 1 role – the anchor of the 24hr economy slogan].
To conclude, those employed were (and still) Ghanaians, who, like everyone, have the right to serve their country.
We should all join hands in condemning what’s wrong and not jump on political colour to defend the indefensible for “abaa yɛde bɔ Takyi no….”
