Motor check halt will hike crime – Analyst

The police directive to personnel to suspend inspection of driver’s licences and other documents to facilitate traffic management will increase lawlessness in the country, international relations and security analyst Nana Owusu Sekyere has said.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Wednesday, October 5, he said the directive flew in the face of the police’s duty to curb lawlessness on our roads.

“To be very honest, you only heighten criminality when you take away this measure, which is supposed to prevent criminality. And don’t forget that what they do at the MTTD branch of the police is, they try to mitigate criminality by their action, which is checking for licences and documentation. When you are not checking for licences, when you are not checking for documentation, clearly what you are doing is you’re going to ask for crime to increase.”

Reacting to the concerns by the security analyst on the same platform on the same day, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur, said the directive would rather serve the best interest of Ghanaians and was in no way a boost for criminal activity.

“This is not to presuppose that Ghanaians are lawless and that everybody is waiting to engage in acts of lawlessness. Ghanaians are not lawless and there is some uncertainty about the directive. … We didn’t even put it in the public domain when we are going to withdraw the suspension so it rather puts drivers and other road users in a state of suspense not knowing when we will commence. … And let me also state that this is not a withdrawal of the road traffic regulation and to every rule there is an exception. If a police officer is working and sees you driving so badly, swinging from one side to the other and he stops you, you can’t tell him that, ‘Your boss says you can’t check my licence’. And so if he arrests you and takes you to court, the court will not say that, ‘Your boss said: ‘suspend motor checks so the laws governing traffic regulations have also been suspended’...” he stated.