President John Dramani Mahama has ordered an immediate expansion of the ongoing security services recruitment exercise, directing that the number of men and women to be enlisted across the various agencies be doubled from 20,000 to 40,000 over a four-year period.

The directive followed a high-level meeting held at the Presidency on Monday, March 16, 2026, bringing together the heads of security agencies, the Minister for the Interior, and the Acting Minister for Defence.

According to a statement released by the Presidency Communications Directorate, the President received a briefing on the progress of the current recruitment process before issuing the new instructions.

"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 read.

The President also charged the heads of the security agencies to ensure transparency and fairness throughout the recruitment process.

Present at the meeting were the Chief of Staff, the Secretary to the President, the Senior Presidential Advisor on Governmental Affairs, the National Security Coordinator, the Inspector General of Police, the Director General of Prisons, the Director General of the Fire Service, the Comptroller-General of the Ghana Immigration Service, and the Director General of the Narcotics Control Commission.

The recruitment challenge

The President's directive comes just days after the Minister for the Interior, Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, revealed the scale of the challenge facing the current recruitment exercise. Speaking to journalists in Parliament on Wednesday, March 11, the minister disclosed that while more than 105,000 applicants had qualified for medical screening, only 5,000 would eventually be enlisted this year due to fiscal constraints.

According to Mr Mohammed-Mubarak, the total applicant pool comprised 75,000 tertiary graduates and 330,000 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) certificate holders. Following online aptitude tests, over 105,000 candidates advanced to the medical screening stage.

"We still have 105,000 who have qualified for medicals. In reality, the total number we can take after medicals is 5,000, so we still face a huge challenge," the minister said at the time.

He appealed to applicants who may not secure a place in the current recruitment to remain patient, explaining that the government intends to retain the details of qualified candidates for future opportunities. He indicated that another recruitment exercise is expected in 2026, when the country is projected to have completed its economic programme with the International Monetary Fund.

"But the President has instructed that those who qualify and pass medicals, let's keep their data. This is the first phase. The current recruitment is for 2025. Hopefully, when we are out of the IMF programme, we will conduct the 2026 recruitment and draw from the same pool of applicants," he assured.

Implications of the expanded target

The President's new directive significantly alters the recruitment outlook, effectively quadrupling the annual intake over the next four years. The expanded target of 40,000 recruits implies an average of 10,000 per year—double the 5,000 figure previously cited for the current exercise.

The directive also raises questions about the fiscal implications of the expanded recruitment, given that the Interior Minister had previously cited economic constraints as the reason for the limited intake.

The Presidency's statement did not specify how the 40,000 recruits would be distributed across the various security agencies, nor did it provide a timeline for the implementation of the expanded target beyond the four-year framework.