Ghana’s Interior Minister, Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak, has announced sweeping changes to the national security services recruitment process after the deadly stampede at the El-Wak Sports Stadium that killed six young applicants. His plan shifts the entire system toward safety, tighter crowd management, and smaller screening batches.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday, November 17, the minister said the revamped recruitment window will now run until December 19, giving agencies enough time to process applicants without repeating the chaotic conditions that led to the disaster.
The centrepiece of the reforms is a strict rule: no more than 1,000 applicants will be screened at any centre per day.
Decongesting the Centres: More Locations, Smaller Crowds
To avoid dangerous overcrowding, the minister said the security services—GAF, Police, Immigration—will dramatically increase the number of screening sites nationwide. The Greater Accra Region, which typically sees the largest applicant turnout, will see the biggest expansion.
He outlined the scale of the new plan. Some cities will host up to 15 screening centres, with agencies instructed to secure any venue big enough to be adapted for safe screening.
He noted that the police have previously operated as many as eight centres, but the new system demands far more. Accra alone could see centres spread across locations such as the Accra Sports Stadium and the Legon Sports Stadium.
The Daily 1,000-Person Cap
The minister made it clear that safety, not venue size, will determine capacity. Every centre will operate under a fixed daily limit: 1,000 applicants, split into 500 in the morning and 500 in the afternoon.
He pushed back against suggestions that massive venues could safely handle larger groups.
Using the Accra Sports Stadium as an example, he explained that even if the stadium can seat 40,000 people, the real danger lies outside where applicants gather and jostle to enter. The new quota is framed as a non-negotiable safeguard to ensure there is no repeat of the overcrowding that caused the El-Wak stampede.
Joint Security Operations for Crowd Control
A key feature of the new approach is tighter coordination across the security services. Crowd control, the minister said, can’t be left to the recruiting agency alone. Police, Immigration, and the Armed Forces will now assist one another when applicant numbers surge.
He stressed that a united approach will help manage the process smoothly and protect applicants throughout the recruitment period, which is set to end on December 19.