Security personnel on election monitoring to carry duty reminder notes

Security officers who will be on duty during Election 2012, will carry easily accessible printed notes of their prime duties.

The notes will serve as reminders to guide them to take decisions when confronted with tricky situations.

Mr Oliver Lawluvi, Senior Director of Executive Diligence, a company undertaking election duty training for security officers across the country, said this in Ho on Friday.

He was speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a training programme for 300 security officers in the Volta Region.

The programme is being sponsored by the British Government through the Department of International Development (DFID).

Mr Lawluvi said for the first time, security personnel were being taken through a more formal training schedule, that should make them professionally alert to face election monitoring duties.

He said the programme was designed to put Ghana’s law enforcement agencies in readiness to superintendent the elections professionally and to deal with deviant behaviour without fear or favour.

Mr Lawluvi said the motivation for programme planners and sponsors was that election related violence in Ghana would be prevented, against the backdrop of the African world; “where political power and its trappings have become so juicy that the players and their followers are prepared to break all rules of engagement to gain or retain power”.

He said after the training, the security officers should know their limits and have the confidence to professionally contend erring politicians and government appointees.

Topics to be treated during the three day training, ending on Saturday include, Election Security and Monitoring, Security and Elections and Electoral Process-Security Implications.