The Minister-designate for Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, has indicated that contrary to the assertion that recruitment into the Ghana Armed Forces is segmented and does not present a fair representation of the country, no such thing is possible.

He explained that the military has selectors who travel around the country to recruit people and since nobody knows the political leanings of these people, it will be untenable to say that they are able to influence their choices.

He said that there is nothing like a protocol list or process of recruitment into the Forces and as such, for unsuspecting people, if they do not see adverts in the national newspapers, then they should know those are red flags for fraud.

He also stressed the processes for enlistment into the Ghana Armed Forces have never included protocol lists.

“I want to assure the country that it is not possible to influence recruitment or enlistment into the Ghana Armed Forces. There are stages and steps and qualifications that members of the public will need to go through – prospective recruits or cadets will have to go through before they are qualified. And especially for cadets, you’ll need to go through about six different stages; none of them can be influenced including writing an exam at the University of Ghana.

“They have selectors who go round the regions to select people. You don’t know the political persuasions of any of the selectors so you can’t influence them so it is a perception which has been there for a very long time but it is not a true story and I can assure you that it is not possible at all.

“And for the Armed Forces, if you don’t see the adverts in the Ghanaian Times, the Daily Graphic, or the official page of the Ghana Armed Forces on the internet, please, they are fraudsters. Ghana Armed Forces do not ask you to pay money to get recruited except when you are buying the scratch card. We have arrested several people and will continue to arrest people. Secondly, there is no protocol in the Armed Forces so anybody who says there is a protocol recruitment, straight-away then you should know that the person is trying to defraud you.

He was responding to questions posed to him on during his vetting at Parliament's Appointments Committee.