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staff. Some fifty nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety one (59,991) responded to the advertisement, out of which twenty thousand, one hundred and seventy seven (20,177) met the requirements, and the available vacancies are three hundred and fifty (350). The recent recruitment exercise in the Ghana Armed Forces went along similar lines. Some twenty six thousand, and thirty two (26,032) young people applied to be enlisted into the Other Ranks; twenty one thousand, and seventy three (21,073) of them qualified, and were shortlisted. The number to be taken to start training later this month is one thousand, eight hundred (1,800). The Police Service recruitment exercise tells a similar story. Some one hundred and fifty eight thousand, seven hundred and thirty four (158,734) young people applied, and seventy nine thousand, nine hundred and nine (79,909) of them met the requirements, and financial clearance has been given for two thousand (2,000) of them to be taken into the service. Once I started looking, I found similar stories all around. The grim story of youth unemployment has been a tragic part of our lives for far too long. When I became President, therefore, I knew my work was cut out. We had to do things differently, if we were going to banish the spectre of desperation, and restore hope to our youth. We inherited an economy that was in distress, choked by debt, and with macroeconomic fundamentals in disarray. We had to do things differently, and those were my marching orders to all members of the government. We have rapidly to grow and expand the economy, and that can only happen when the fundamentals are in place. The Economic Management Team has risen to the challenge, and demonstrated that doing things differently achieves positive results. You would recall that, throughout the election campaign, we said part of the reason for the difficulties with the economy was the sole sourcing of procurement by government. Let me give you a few figures to illustrate this point.