Accra, March 18, GNA—The Right Reverend Dr Gordon Kisseih, Presiding Bishop of the Life International Church, has called on the Ghana Police Service to base their recruitments on character references to ensure more professionalism in the service.
He said in recent times, recruitment was centred on the ‘who knows you and whom you know’ syndrome rather than the requirements by the security services.
“In effect, people get recruited into the security services not because they have the passion and love for a security career, but because they need a job and know someone,” he said.
Rt Rev Dr Kisseih made the call at the launch of this year’s Prayer Festival of the church at Achimota in Accra on Thursday.
The seven-day festival which begins on Monday, March 21 and ends on Sunday, March 27 is aimed at using prayers as an effective tool of communicating with God for spiritual upliftment of the participants as well as praying for peace and the socio-economic development of the nation.
The Presiding Bishop appealed to the Police Service Council to establish criteria for conducting extensive background checks on anyone applying for any security service.
‘Thorough investigations should be conducted without the applicant’s knowledge to determine if they have any criminal background’, he said adding that I feel that if this is done objectively it will aid in identifying those who are already deviant in security and have found their way into the service to cause disorder.
“The Police service is a profession of standards and quality with the highest level of intelligence and that all efforts must be aimed to ensure that recruitment and training divisions comply with the laws and guidelines stipulated in the recruitment and training policy framework,” Rt Rev. Kisseih added.
He charged religious leaders to desist from all forms of negative tendencies that may tarnish the image of the clergy.
GNA