Vice President Mahamadu Bawumia, has urged the Police Service to work hard to weed out corrupt elements within its fold.
According to him, report after report of the Afrobarometer cites the Service as the most perceived corrupt public institution in Ghana and that “this is not right and it can no longer be the status quo.”
The vice president was speaking at the Graduation Ceremony of the 47th Cadet Officers Course at the Ghana Police Academy in Accra Friday.
“It is often said that the public is the police and the police is the public. Currently, the Police Service, unfortunately, suffers diminishing public image, some say lower than it should have. Report after report of the Afrobarometer cites the Service, fairly or unfairly, as the most perceived corrupt public institution in Ghana,” Dr Bawumia said.
“This is not right and it can no longer be the status quo. Citizens can only have confidence in the Police Service when our men and women in uniform are seen to be honest and would enforce the law without fear or favour. Your task, as Officer Cadets, is to help ensure that this perception no longer holds,” he added.
Touching on equipping the police, Dr Bawumia said, his government was determined to give whatever support is required to “ensure that we have the service that the people of Ghana deserve.”
He said the government, will be this year, rehabilitate police stations across the country to standardize the infrastructure.
“We aim to build a robust, effective, efficient and disciplined police force. The policy of my government on law and order is to focus more on proactive and preventive policing, rather than reactive. We will do so by increasing both visibility and capacity. An initial amount of GH¢800 million, in the short term, will support the important task of reducing crime and increasing public safety,” the vice president said.
He said this year alone, the government plans to recruit 4,000 more police personnel.
“We know that what matters most is not the number of police officers we recruit, but the number of officers we deploy, and how effectively they are deployed. We are improving the data analytics of the service to make policing more efficient and alive to modern trends in crime,” he said.
Dr Bawumia disclosed that negotiations have just been completed for the rollout of Phase II of the Alpha Project, which will involve the deployment of 8,700 CCTV cameras in all 216 districts, with three command centres in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Isaac Nuamah Yeboah
