Information gathered by The Enquirer suggests that more heads are likely to be implicated in the sham police recruitment exercise that rocked the nation a couple of days ago.
So far, five people, including COP Patrick Timbillah in charge of Human Resource at the Ghana Police Headquarters, have been interdicted for their alleged role in the sham.
His interdiction was recommended by a Special Police Taskforce headed by DCOP Bright Oduro; COP Timbillah has, however denied knowledge of the recruitment scam.
But if the snippets of information picked up by the paper are anything to go by, then more of the top brass of the Ghana Police might be caught up in the scam considered as one the biggest to hit the police service in recent years.
According to the paper’s security source, there is a great probability that more of the police hierarchy other than COP Timbillah are involved in the recruitment fraud.
The security source, who said the latest rot goes to confirm that indeed the police service is one of the worst corrupt institutions in the country, indicated that the sham recruitment exercise has been going on in the police service for a very long time.
Meanwhile Mr. Mark Woyongo, the Interior Minister yesterday told Joy FM, that plans are in place to punish all those who may fall prey to the scam as investigations into the fraud continues.
In a twist of events, Mr. Woyongo revealed that he got wind of the fraudulent recruitment exercises at the Ghana Police Service some four months ago.
He told Joy FMs, Kojo Yankson, that he discovered the scam in December last year when he had gone to the Northern Region for holidays.
“My constituents came to me asking me to help them get admission into the police training colleges. And I told them we were not recruiting. They said ‘how, they are recruiting’…they said some people have gotten letters,” he said.
Mr. Woyongo said after requesting to see a copy of the so-called admission letter, he realised – after critical examination – that the letters bore the signature of COP Patrick Timbillah.
According to JOY FM, the Interior Minister inquired from the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Alhassan, about the matter, but the police chief apparently had no knowledge of any recruitment, confirming that the letters may be a scam.
“So I went further to probe and got pay-in slips, monies they paid into some bank accounts – Stanbic Bank on the Spintex Road. So I then called COP Timbillah and told him what I had seen and what I had got. So he said that that’s fine, he would follow it up.
“A few days later I called back for the feedback and he said they had put a ban, an embargo on the account on the Spintex Road,” he said.
