Member of Parliament foe Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah has warned of a growing national crisis in youth drug abuse and mental health, following revelations that more than 6,000 applicants failed medical screening in the ongoing security services recruitment exercise.
Assafuah who is Ranking Member on Parliament’s Youth and Sports Committee, said the figures should be treated as a “wake-up call” on the state of young people in the country rather than a routine recruitment setback.
His comments come after the Minister of Interior, Mohammed Mubarak Muntaka, disclosed that over 4,000 applicants were disqualified due to drug use while about 2,000 others failed mental health assessments during the medical stage of the exercise.
The Old Tafo MP said the affected candidates formed part of more than 100,000 applicants who had advanced to the medical screening stage of recruitment into the security services.
He described the outcome as alarming, arguing that it points to deeper social and public health challenges affecting Ghana’s youth.
“These are the young men and women who… wanted to serve. They had cleared the earlier hurdles,” he said, adding that the findings raise questions about the wider state of youth wellbeing.
Not isolated data
Assafuah said the screening results should not be seen as isolated data from a recruitment process but as a reflection of broader societal trends already flagged by health experts.
He noted that mental health currently receives less than 1.5 percent of Ghana’s health budget, which he described as inadequate given the scale of the challenge.
The MP also warned that prior to tighter screening measures, individuals with substance abuse and mental health issues may have entered security institutions undetected.
Recommendations
He called for a parliamentary inquiry into the recruitment exercise, a nationwide mental health and substance abuse survey, and increased funding for mental healthcare services.
Other proposals included expanded counselling services in schools, improved rehabilitation facilities, and a bipartisan national response involving state institutions, traditional leaders, and civil society groups.
Assafuah urged that the issue be treated as a national concern rather than a political matter, saying Ghana’s future depends on the wellbeing of its young population.
He warned that the data should be viewed as a signal of a deeper crisis requiring urgent attention from policymakers.
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