‘Help redeem image of police’

Page 25: Daily Graphic, May 15, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia & Francis Yaw Kyei
POLICE personnel have been asked to discharge their duties in a manner that will help redeem the sunken image of the service.
Addressing the passing-out parade of 116 recruits in Accra last Tuesday, the Director-General in charge of Services of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police (COP), Mr Yaw Adu-Gyimah, said that hardly a day passed without the newspapers reporting one crime or another which had been committed by a policeman, adding that instead of fighting crime, some policemen perpetuated it.
The ceremony formed part of efforts of the government to boost the human resource in the service.
There are currently a little over 22,000 police personnel in the country.
Mr Adu-Gyamfi told the new recruits that they were being initiated into a Police Service that had lost credibility among the populace they were to protect.
“The Police kill instead of protecting life; police rob instead of protecting the public against robbery. Police defraud and condone fraud instead of protecting the public against fraudulent elements in the society. They molest instead of protecting the public from bullies,” he said.
Mr Adu-Gyimah further expressed regret that the police had become a menace to road users by abandoning their road safety responsibility and rather extorting moey on the roads.
“I want to charge you here and now to go and change this negative and grotesque picture that some of your colleagues who are already in the field have painted for the service,” he entreated the recruits.
“The public no more volunteer information to the police since they would not hesitate to blow the lid off their informants and this has made crime fighting and prevention an uphill task, for without information, the police wallow in a quagmire of futility in their quest for crime prevention and detection,” he stated.
Mr Adu-Gyimah, whose address did not go down well with some personnel because they claimed he was washing the dirty linen of the police in public, said some senior police officers could not escape blame for the negative tendencies in the service because they failed to check their subordinates.
He reminded the recruits of the delicate task ahead of them since “the days when some police personnel felt they were so powerful or above the law that they could, therefore, physically assault, insult, abuse and threaten members of the public for no just cause are over.”
He said the rights of all citizens as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution must be respected and protected by treating members of the public with utmost respect and civility.
“I must emphasise that in our present democratic dispensation where the Constitution guarantees freedom and human rights and protection through the rule of law, it is important that no opportunity whatsoever is given to any police officer to display recklessness, officiousness, high-handedness or any form of arrogance or abuse of power on the citizenry,” he said, adding that “the service has, therefore, no room for abusive and arrogant police personnel.”
Mr Adu-Gyimah urged the recruits to see the knowledge they had acquired during their training as a foundation which they needed to build upon as hard work and sacrifice would be required of them.
The recruits, who were made up of 48 from the Kumasi Training School and 68 from the National Police Training School in Accra, earlier undertook drills and exercises to entertain the dignitaries, family members and the public who had gathered to witness the parade.
While policewoman recruit Bridget Yeboah from Kumasi was adjudged the overall best recruit as well as best in academic work and markswoman, policewoman recruit Augustina Vigbedor was adjudged the best in academic work and the overall best recruit from Accra.