3 Policemen face disciplinary action * For reporting at wrong duty posts

Page 3: Daily Graphic, June 13, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
Three policemen who were found at wrong duty posts in Accra last Thursday have been arrested in a special exercise to curb indiscipline in the Ghana Police Service.
The culprits, who are currently in police custody, are Lance Corporal Emmanuel Togah of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), L/Cpl Collins Amoako of the Accra Central Division and Constable Asamoah Sarpong of the Airport Police.
Surprisingly, L/Cpl Togah, who until his arrest on Thursday was on interdiction for a series of police misconduct cases, was found in police uniform and combat helmet on traffic duties along the Graphic Road.
L/Cpl Amoako, who was supposed to be on guard duties at the Knutford Avenue branch of the Barclays Bank, was rather found at the Tudu branch of the SG-SSB in a T-shirt, while his uniform, which had the rank of a corporal lay in a kiosk close by.
Constable Sarpong was found loitering at Kantamanto when he was expected to be on guard duties at the Dzorwulu branch of the GT Bank.
Five others whose names are being withheld are also being investigated for deserting their posts.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Director of Police Operations, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Richmond Nii Boi-Bi-Boi, and the Special Operations Assistant (SOA), Superintendent Alhaji H. A. Yakubu, who led the exercise on Thursday, said the exercise was in response to directives by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Quaye, to instil discipline and the right attitude in personnel.
Following the directives, ACP Boi-Bi-Boi said, the Operations Department and the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau (PIPS) decided to embark on surprise checks at duty posts to ensure that personnel performed the tasks assigned them with diligence and professionalism.
He said the IGP was concerned about the increasing indiscipline and the involvement of police personnel in criminality, as well as their attitude of deserting their posts.
ACP Boi-Bi-Boi said the team set up by the two departments started the exercise on Thursday by visiting roads, banks, checkpoints and traffic lights to examine the turn out of personnel and whether they had been mandated by their commanders to conduct those exercises.
“The team is to find out whether the personnel behave well while on duty, they professional, properly turned out in uniforms and whether they are undertaking lawful duties,” he explained.
According to him, the exercise had become necessary because it had been reported that some personnel assigned themselves certain duties without recourse to their commanders, call their colleagues in other jurisdictions and indulge in illegal activities such as debt collection and road checks.
ACP Boi-Bi-Boi said some of the complaints also related to personnel abandoning their officially assigned bank duty posts for other banks, while others absented themselves from duty, as well as left their weapons behind.
He said the exercise, which would be replicated across the country, was also to ensure that personnel conducted themselves well and did not put up insulting behaviour in their dealings with members of the public.
He explained that such behaviours did not augur well for the image of the service, hence the directives by the IGP to deal with the growing canker.
For his part, Supt Yakubu said it was in line with the vision of the IGP that the exercise was mounted on Thursday to send signals to others in the Police Service that “they must change their attitude to work, be professional or be blown off”.
Since his assumption of duty, the IGP has warned personnel of the service to embrace the wind of change blowing in the service or be blown off.