Bolgatanga, Feb. 19, GNA- Afrikids Ghana, an NGO working in the area of child welfare and protection has donated a solar lighting system worth 2,480 Ghana Cedis to the Upper East Regional Police Command. The presentation was made through its "Support in Northern Ghana" (SINGh) Project component.

The NGO has also made known its intention to present the Police with additional items including three computers and accessories, two printers and one scanner to support them in their investigation processes. The Manager in charge of the SINGh Project, Mr. Frank Adabre, stated that the reason for providing the security personnel with the solar lighting system was to help facilitate their work, especially during night patrols, and said most of the police personnel on night duty at the check points used lanterns which were not cost effective and also affected climatic change. He explained that one of the core objectives of his outfit was to curb child trafficking which was usually done in the night, adding that with the solar lights the police could easily trace and arrest such people.

Mr Adabre stated that North Link, a renewable and sustainable solar company, had been supporting SINGh in providing solar lights to rural communities and the Community based Health Planning Service (CHPS) Centres of the Ghana Health Services.

He assured the Regional Police Command that his outfit would take additional responsibility to maintain the solar lighting systems and urged the police to draw the attention of his outfit whenever the lamps needed repairs.

The Upper East Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police,(ACP) Bright Oduro, thanked the NGO for the kind gesture and called on other organizations to emulate the gesture to complement Government efforts at providing logistics for the Police service, since government alone could not provide all the logistics for the police. He indicated that the police was actually in dire need of logistics and other infrastructure and appealed to individual philanthropists and groups for assistance to facilitate Police work.

The Regional Commander called on the general public to cooperate with the Police Administration in addressing crime situations in the Region, saying that the police would be capable of combatting crime more effectively in the area if they were given the necessary support. He particularly called on the public to volunteer information and pledged police protection for informants. 19 Feb 10