President John Dramani Mahama has directed a major expansion in recruitment across Ghana’s security services, ordering that 40,000 personnel be enlisted over the next four years.
The new directive effectively doubles the initial target of 20,000 recruits, following a high-level meeting held at the Presidency on March 16, 2026, involving key security chiefs and government officials.
According to a statement from the Presidency Communications Directorate, the President issued the instruction after receiving a briefing on the ongoing recruitment exercise.
“Following a briefing on the process, the President has directed that the number of men and women to be recruited to the various security agencies should be increased from twenty thousand (20,000) to forty thousand (40,000) over a four-year period,” the statement said.
President Mahama also emphasised the need for transparency and fairness in the recruitment process, tasking heads of the various security agencies to ensure credibility at all stages.
The meeting was attended by top officials including the Inspector General of Police, heads of the Ghana Immigration Service, Fire Service, Prisons Service, and the Narcotics Control Commission, as well as senior government figures.
The directive comes amid concerns about limited recruitment opportunities. Earlier, Interior Minister Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak disclosed that although over 105,000 applicants qualified for medical screening, only 5,000 could be recruited under the current exercise due to financial constraints.
He explained that the applicant pool included hundreds of thousands of candidates, highlighting the intense competition for limited slots.
With the President’s new directive, the recruitment outlook is set to change significantly, with an average of 10,000 personnel expected to be enlisted annually over the next four years.
However, the announcement also raises questions about funding and implementation, as previous constraints were linked to Ghana’s economic programme. The Presidency has yet to provide details on how the recruits will be distributed across the various agencies or how the expanded plan will be financed.
