My gov't will elect IGP - Odike

The flagbearer of the United Front Party (UFP), Akwasi Addai otherwise known as 'Odike', says if elected into office, he will ensure that corruption in the Police Service is brought down to its barest minimum through the election of the Inspector General of Police (IGP).

Currently, the IGP is appointed by the President in consultation with the Police Service Council and the Council of State. But Odike says the appointment of the IGP only stimulates corruption in the service.

He was speaking at the Presidential Debate organized by the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation last night for candidates who are not part of the IEA Presidential debates.

He said: “Politics is killing everything in this country and I believe when Ghanaians give me the nod on December 7, I will push the motion to parliament to look into so many things that we can do to reduce the powers of the Executive.”

Odike said some of the police officials are “doing a very good job. Not all of them but like I always say, we have institutional problems,” adding “that is why I subscribe to the election of the IGP by the police administration. This will clean up the mess in there because everybody there will think that one day he wants to become an IGP so he must protect his or her integrity.”

Touching on empowering the service, Odike said the police must be granted the power to charge instant penalties against road traffic offenders to cut down on the corruption.

According to him, this “will reduce the moneys they are filling [their] pockets [with]. We need to empower them to create wealth for the police administration.”

Odike said it is necessary for the police administration to be neutral in its dealings and if they are elected, it will cure the ills of political appointments made by the political parties when in government.

He insisted that state institutions in Ghana are weak and must be empowered to do more devoid of politics.

He said currently Ghana is practicing a “quasi-democracy” because it is not backed by economic and institutional transformation. “Democracy is not at work, something must be done,” he lamented.

Proposing an audacious plan to fight corruption in the sub-region, the flagbearer of the UFP said he will consider a union police force for the ECOWAS sub-region.

According to him, “we are going to have one police. The individual state police will be there but we are going to have one common police that will supervise all the crimes in these countries to ensure that whoever commits atrocities do not go scot free.”