Ghana charged over half a million young people to apply for jobs protecting the nation. That is wrong, and the money must be returned.

In the 2025/2026 security services recruitment exercise, every applicant was required to purchase a voucher for GH₵ 220 before accessing the application portal. With 506,618 applicants and only 5,000 positions available, the arithmetic is stark: approximately GH₵ 111.32 million was collected from young Ghanaians, the overwhelming majority of whom were never going to be recruited.

This is not a processing inconvenience. It is a structural injustice. The problem deepens at the medical screening stage. Approximately 105,000 applicants were shortlisted to proceed to medical examinations, a process that costs GH₵ 1,600 per candidate. Of those 105,000, only 5,000 will be recruited.

That means roughly 100,000 shortlisted Ghanaians will pay the fee and still walk away with nothing. No position. No refund. No explanation.

Consider what GH₵ 220 means to a family where the mother sells provisions at a roadside stall to feed three children. It means a week of food. It means a school uniform. It means a debt she quietly took on so her son could chase the one opportunity available to him.

He passed the aptitude test. He was shortlisted. He could not afford the medical fee. His application lapsed. This is not hypothetical. It is playing out across all sixteen regions. Nigeria recruited 50,000 new police officers in 2025. Free of charge.

Kenya recruited 10,000 police constables in 2025. Free of charge. In countries that understand the meaning of national service, the state does not bill the citizen for the privilege of applying to serve.

Ghana's 1992 Constitution does not expressly prohibit recruitment application fees, but Article 17's guarantee of equality before the law and Article 35's mandate to expand opportunities for all citizens together make the imposition of such fees constitutionally inconsistent with the spirit of the republic.

The ABAN Center for Global Policy calls on President John Dramani Mahama to issue a presidential directive refunding application fees effective immediately and abolishing it for all future recruitment cycles.

The GH₵ 220 must be refunded to every applicant who did not proceed to the final intake. Mobile Money was used to collect it. Mobile Money can return it. The state has both the mechanism and the obligation.

The medical examination cost for shortlisted candidates must be absorbed by the state and budgeted accordingly under the Ministries of Interior and Defence. A government that cannot fund its own recruitment process should not outsource that cost to unemployed young people.

Patriotism should never come with a bill attached.

The ABAN Center for Global Policy is a youth-led think tank committed to evidence-based policy advocacy in Ghana.

http://www.abanglobal.org