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Opinions of Saturday, 28 October 2006

Columnist: Amankwah, Nana Kofi

Ghana Police Department must be Policing by others.

The essence of services from the Ghanaian police department to our nation has been ruined by corrupt behaviors by the police administration for many years must end. The country needs a new direction to deal with corruptions. It must start from our police departments.

Although many Ghanaians can identify the sickness of the police departments across the nation, only few of us can provide the prescription that will cure the sickness. Recently, the Inspector-General of police, Patrick Acheampong and some other senior police office were involved in a cocaine dilemma. This was a disgrace to our entire nation. These police officers were supposed to provide social services to the nation. Instead they are engaging themselves in these criminal activities. Their actions suggest to us that the IGP and his top ranking officers must be fired without any hesitation.

The corrupt activities of the Ghana police department can be solve by adopting these principles. The Justice department, National security ministry department and the Interior ministry department should have the jurisdiction to monitor the police departments’ day-to-day activities through special informant units. These informants should be combined with civilians and military officers. The military officers must wear a civilian cloth, and must also be allowed to curry fire arms during their operations to monitor these corrupt officers through out the country. The police, who takes these bribe from tro tro driver, criminals and complainants on daily bases; must be arrested and also appear on national television to disgrace them before sending them to court for justice. They must be charged with a felony with a minimum of ten years imprisonment.

The government must also for fest all their pension and social security benefits to the state.

The police departments must not be allowed to purchase any items above one million cedis. All their purchasing should be in tender bases through public offers which will be monitored by the auditor general departments. The police quarter master’s officer must be monitored by the staff from the auditor general office and also including three informants who must work on a daily bases in that office to watched their activities. The new repair of police buildings should also be in the tender bases for the public to bid for the lowest bidder.

The attorney general and the ministry of interior should use this system of informants to monitor the police prosecutors who are taking these huge bribes before sending cases to the courts and sharing the money with the judges. These individuals have destroyed the image of the country’s court system. The police department must work on a quota basis where they have to provide a significant amount of revenues into the government’s coffers. If they filed, they must answer to the government or those who are in charge must be fired. The majority of police employees are the richest civil servant employees in the country. About 68% live in urban areas living on daily bribery. These individuals were able to use the system to acquire a lot of property. If you visit some of their police stations at night you can see private vehicles and commercial vehicles parked at their houses. Yet they are still looking for a raise from the government without helping the government to acquired revenue for the State. Regrettably, the police injustices in our nation has facilitated the corruption activities in other ` government institutions which many government employee have adopted in their daily business. These policies must be implemented if John Agyekum Kufuor uses his common sense to apply it. This system of corruption within the police department will be change scientifically and it will help our nation.

Nana Kofi Amamkwah (New York)

Views expressed by the author(s) do not necessarily reflect those of GhanaHomePage.