Sekondi (Western Region) -- The Western Regional Police Command on Monday assured the public that adequate security measures had been put in place to protect the Regional Minister, Joseph Boahene Aidoo, and that of his family.

"We are offering him 24-hour protection, security at his residence has been beefed up and detectives are working around the clock to give him and his family maximum security,'' Issaka Salami, regional crime officer, told the GNA that the police were not taking the alleged threat on the life of the regional minister lightly.

According to him other measures have been evolved to ensure that no harm is done to the minister but these cannot be made public.

Tanker drivers were alleged to have threatened to kill Aidoo following an operation in which he caught some people siphoning fuel from tankers.

Many people the GNA spoke to advised the security personnel not regard the threat on the life of the minister as a mere joke. A commercial driver who asked not to named said some tanker drivers ''are heartless, are dreadful on the road and can carry out the threat,” while two others Kofi Eshun a fisherman and Maame Akua Kwansima said “They are our colleagues and we know the stuff they are made of. They are capable of anything.''

Nine days ago the Regional Minister led a team of policemen to bust a fuel racketeering syndicate. In that operation six people were arrested and a few days’ later soldiers arrester nine people involved in fuel siphoning and seized several drums hidden in the bush.

It is believed that those arrested in the two operations "are only small flies in the deal" and the people called the police and the Minister of Energy to step up the investigations to find the "big fishes" behind the fuel deals.