The Criminality of Rushed Public Sector Recruitments and the Exploitation of Desperate Youth

1. I have so many feelings about the reckless, politically motivated recruitments of significant public sector workers and the subsequent dismissals of those hired after December 7.
2. As a young person, I understand the human cost of these decisions. The reality is that many of those who were recruited had to pay vast sums of money just to receive their employment letters.
3. The demand for bribes in exchange for public sector jobs has now become an entrenched and invested practice—one perfected by our morally bankrupt and soulless elites. And by elites, I do not mean only politicians; I also mean the civil servants who have made an industry out of exploiting the desperation of young people.
4. To ask a young person to pay between GHS 25,000 to GHS 40,000 for a job is not just corrupt—it is unconscionable. These are the systemic injustices that transcend government; they are the kind of entrenched rot that institutions like the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) must confront.
5. Rot and dysfunction are no longer anomalies in Ghanaian public life; they are its defining features. And yet, rather than uniting against these injustices, many young people continue to fight each other—or me. You divide yourselves into partisan camps, even though your best chance at change lies in recognising your shared struggles and coming together with one voice.
6. We need an Equal Opportunities Act—a law that eliminates protocol recruitments, criminalises sex-for-jobs and pay-for-recruitment schemes, and ensures that employment in Ghana is based on merit, not backdoor dealings.
7. We need the Ghanaian state to stop preying on its own citizens.
8. And we need young people to understand that there is no moral dignity in paying to be employed. That is not “grace”; that is exploitation. You are being robbed of your future and told to be grateful for it.
9. For all those who have now been dismissed, I hope you will speak freely to EOCO about the recruitment scams that took advantage of your desperation—whether you are NPP or GCPP.
10. And you, NDC footsoldier, member, local branch executive or sympathizer – your party will rob you the same way. I’m sad to tell you, that party membership will not insulate you from the greed that is now Government! Record and Report any demands for bribe. Don’t call it grace today; and cry tomorrow!

Shalom.

By: Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a private legal practitioner.