President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday suggested to the Ghana Police service to step up the Regional joint training programmes to help them to eliminate transnational crimes in the region.

“You need to encourage such programmes by sustaining and increasing the regional collaborations and to give other countries the opportunity.”

He said government would support the service to expand facilities that would help train more people from the West African sub-region in policing and general security activities.

President Mahama made this suggestion when he reviewed and commissioned 196 Police Cadet Officers from Ghana, Gambia and Liberia.

The Officers have gone through six months of physical and academic training and would soon be posted to various regions and districts to take up new responsibilities.

President Mahama said the Ghana Police service had demonstrated high level of professionalism in the past elections and urged them to repeat that enthusiasm to avoid electoral violence before, during and after the December polls.

He said government would continue to support the management of the Ghana Police Service to eliminate the bad nuts that had over the years tarnished the image of the service, thereby clouding all the good things they having been doing.

President Mahama called on the new officers to discharge their duties without fear or favour as a way of deterring people from engaging in criminal activities.

Gloria Donkor emerged as the all round best student in the six-month training programme, while Foday Fofana from the Gambia emerged as the best foreign student.**