20,000 Police By 2004

Two institutions, which keep coming under the public attack, are the police and chieftaincy institution.

There is one man who straddles the two: Nana Owusu Nsiah, The Inspector General of Police. He doubles as a traditional chief as his title of Nana suggests and is also Ghana's Chief Constable.

Nana Owusu Nsiah has vowed to fight on the two fronts to redeem the images of the two beleaguered institutions he belongs to. Yesterday, he met with members of the press to discuss issues affecting policing in the country.

The positive development he announced in the interaction yesterday had to do with the number of police personnel in the country, which he said would hit the 20,000 mark by the year 2004. To achieve this, he announced that the government has given the police administration the green light to recruit 2000 personnel this year and another 2000 next year.

Results for a nationwide recruitment exercise carried out in February this year he said would be released soon and those who qualify would commence their pre-training procedures.

With the cooperation of municipal and district assemblies throughout the country, housing projects are going to be undertaken to provide shelter for cops in those places he said.

A hostel project is being put up at the Police Headquarters for officers in transit in Accra for official duties to save the service huge hotel bills which have been incurred over the years.

The establishment of operational command centers for Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Sekondi to facilitate the creation of rapid deployment forces is being considered so that trouble spots can be managed effectively, he said.

The IGP called for circumspection from the press about how they present their reports as inaccurate reporting would undermine security and stability in the country.

He expressed worry about the tendency of some aggrieved police personnel to rush to the press over matters which could be tackled by existing channels within the service.

He expressed delight at the level of trust members of public have built in the police. This co-operation has helped in exposing the movements of criminals which has resulted in the arrest of many armed robbers in recent times.

The human resource development of the personnel he said is witnessing a major improvement with the conduct of various career enhancement seminars.

With regard to crime fighting vehicles he said the recent acquisitions by the government were the most visible signs of positive change which has happened to the Police Service in recent times.