Ranking Member on Parliament’s Youth and Sports Committee, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, has expressed concern over what he describes as a growing crisis of substance abuse and mental health challenges among Ghanaian youth following revelations from the ongoing security services recruitment exercise.

In a press statement issued on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, the Old Tafo MP said the latest recruitment figures should serve as a national wake-up call rather than being treated as an isolated challenge within the recruitment process.

His comments follow disclosures by the Minister for the Interior, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, who revealed in an interview on Pan African Television that more than 6,000 applicants failed the medical stage of the security services recruitment due to drug use and mental health conditions.

According to Assafuah, over 4,000 applicants tested positive for substance abuse, while an additional 2,000 were disqualified because of mental health-related issues out of more than 100,000 young people who reached the medical screening stage.

“Consequently, more than six thousand young people, approximately six per cent of the entire cohort, were denied the opportunity to serve their country on account of substance abuse and mental ill health,” parts of the statement read.

The MP described the figures as disturbing, warning that they reveal not just a recruitment problem but a broader public health concern with serious implications for national development and the future of Ghana’s youth.

“These are the young men and women who woke up, dressed up and presented themselves to serve their country. They had already passed earlier stages and clearly had aspirations,” he noted.

He further argued that if six per cent of motivated and prepared applicants could not pass basic health assessments, then the country must pay closer attention to the wider situation among other vulnerable young people who may not even have access to such opportunities.

Although he acknowledged that the recruitment process was not intended as a nationwide scientific survey, Assafuah said it still represents one of the largest simultaneous health screenings of young people ever conducted across multiple regions in Ghana.

“These figures are not a judgment on Ghanaian youth. They are a warning signal from a problem we have scarcely begun to measure,” he stressed.

The Ranking Member linked the findings to longstanding concerns raised by experts and institutions regarding drug abuse and mental health issues in the country, insisting that the recruitment outcomes merely reinforce existing evidence.

“The security services screening is not an outlier. It is an echo,” the statement added.

Assafuah also criticised what he described as years of inadequate investment in mental healthcare, revealing that mental health receives less than 1.5 per cent of Ghana’s national health budget.

He warned that before the introduction of the expanded screening measures, individuals battling substance abuse and mental health conditions may have entered the country’s security services undetected.

To address the situation, the MP proposed a parliamentary inquiry into the recruitment findings, a nationwide survey on youth mental health and substance abuse, increased funding for mental healthcare, school-based counselling programmes, and expanded rehabilitation facilities.

He also called for a bipartisan national effort involving Parliament, government agencies, religious organisations, traditional authorities, and civil society groups to collectively tackle the growing challenge.

Ending his statement with a passionate appeal, Assafuah urged Ghanaians to treat the issue as a national concern rather than a partisan matter.

“Ghana’s future does not live in our oil. It does not live in our cocoa. It does not live in our gold. It lives in the bodies and minds of eleven point eight million young people,” he stated.

“We have just been told, for the first time and at scale, that something is wrong with that future. The hour calls us not to despair or denial, but to action.”