The Ghana Prisons Service has refuted allegations of ongoing secret recruitment of some 5000 personnel into the service without recourse to laid down procedures.
Several people were spotted undergoing medicals at the Roman ridge training centre of the service yesterday October 22, 2019, sparking rumours of a secret recruitment exercise.
There are also claims of a list of recruits emanating from the Jubilee House with many of them believed to be members of the ruling party.
However speaking to Starr FM, PRO of the Service Superintendent Courage Atsem said the current trainees were from an earlier training programme.
“The Ghana Prisons Service as we well know is a public institution and so we do not do secret recruitment or enlistment. All our recruitment are public and they are advertised and the late one, as I said, was advertised last year and the procedure started last year. We have placed about three batches already. This is about the fourth batch we are working on. So it’s not a secret exercise.
“The recruitment is being done by the Ghana Prisons Service. Besides, the Prisons Administration is working on it. Some people who may see people going through and may not have heard earlier, it is just that it is the continuation of what we were doing and so there’s no need to publicize or advertise again because the advert went on last year so just as seen in the adverts, it is only the people who are shortlisted that are invited and that is what we are doing. These are the people who applied earlier and are going through the system,†he said.
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The Ghana Prisons Service on October 18, 2019, held a  graduation Parade of Officer Cadet Course Intake 26 of the Ghana Prisons Service.
At the event, Vice President Dr Bawumia indicated government's collaboration with the Ghana Health Service and other stakeholders to improve health systems in Ghana’s prisons.
In line with the event, over forty (40) medical personnel have been seconded from the Ghana Health Service and posted to various prison establishments, while a national policy has also been launched to register all inmates onto the National Health Insurance Scheme.
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