Prioritising protocol enrolment

 During the regime of one of the finest Police Chiefs in Ghana, I witnessed how he handled protocol recruitments into the Ghana Police Service (GPS).

On one occasion, he received nine names 'from above' for consideration. The names were immediately forwarded to the Human Resource Section and within 48 hours the candidates were invited and taken through the mill.

Four of them were found fit for purpose and were, therefore, recruited. The source of the list was notified of the results and the rest had to try their luck elsewhere.

This is what we knew as protocol recruitment at the time. That one must first qualify in principle to enjoy the undue advantage over other qualified applicants or competitors.

At the time also, there was an unwritten convention within the Service that protocol recruitment should never exceed 10 per cent of the number earmarked for enlistment in a particular year.

Apparently, it was believed that 10 protocol recruits, out of every one hundred total, qualified and found to be fit for purpose was somewhat tolorable, althought not best practice.

System

Unfortunately the system has got worse over the years.

Some institutions can even recruit with 90 per cent protocol. You may only see the advert for vacancies, which is just to deceive the public as vacancies are already filled behind the scenes, with some of the candidates that no serious organisation would want to engage.

This is definitely not the way to build institutions.

This is the unfortunate practice by various administrations over the years that has led to the incredible politicisation and consequential weakening of many, if not all, state institutions in Ghana. The weak institutions we have to make do with today have their roots in the past two decades or so of the practice. Any serious and dispassionate trend analysis would most probably reveal that the future is indeed a sad spectacle.

Security sector

Let's remember that we cannot have development without security. Therefore, treating the Security services like a dumping ground is an unhealthy development.

The Human Resource Management ineffectiveness and inefficiencies in this country are self-inflicted and have got to bizzare proportions where the certificate required to qualify for a job is one's political party card and not skills set and academic or professional qualification. It's no longer even about who you know, but who knows you.

It's therefore not for nothing that even Junior High School (JHS) graduates have become so partisan as they have seen that meritocracy is un-Ghanaian and party affiliation guarantees a better security than academic laurels.

We cannot continue on this trajectory as a nation. Let's be honest to consider some reforms.

The writer is a retired Superintendent of Police