‘Embrace wind of change or be blown off’

Page 53: Daily Graphic, June 4, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, has urged personnel of the Ghana Police Service to embrace the wind of change blowing in the service or be blown off.
He said the change was necessary and personnel must conform to it as his administration “is committed to purging the service of undesirable elements”.
Addressing personnel of the Accra Regional Police Command in Accra last Tuesday, Mr Quaye said the overall responsibility for achieving positive results for such a crusade would lie on senior police officers who supervised the work of their subordinates.
He said the service had for far too long paid lip-service to discipline, noting that the rules of discipline must be made to bite.
He urged officers to be firm in ensuring that incorrigible personnel were dealt with in accordance with the due process of the law and weeded out of the service.
“We cannot afford to continue keeping in our fold personnel who have, by their various nefarious activities, become more of liabilities than assets to the service,” Mr Quaye stated.
According to the IGP, some personnel of the profession had turned the service into a conduit pipe for mercenary activities “with an uncontrolled lust to make money at all costs from any duty they carry out”.
Mr Quaye said in some cases some personnel engaged themselves in unauthorised duties, which gave the impression that they joined the service with hidden agenda and motives.
He said such attitude of the police personnel had combined to dent the image of the service.
“It is a matter of shame to say that some policemen and women, especially those who find themselves deployed for motor traffic duties are seen literally begging for alms on a daily basis, he noted.
"Those of you who see the Police Service as a gold mine or a conceptualised ‘El Dorado’ should advise themselves before they are caught in the web of the rigid enforcement of discipline which the current administration intends to pursue,” he warned.
The IGP, therefore, directed that all motor checks on the highways and other busy roads should only be authorised by regional commanders as inspection teams would be sent out from the Police Headquarters to major routes to deal with wayward personnel.
Touching on policing in Accra, Mr Quaye said the work of the police in the nation's capital was demanding and daunting and urged the personnel to take up the challenges in their stride and work assiduously towards ensuring that Accra was safe for all residents.
Mr Quaye advised personnel to avoid ‘trial and error’ style of conducting investigations because it resulted in waste of time and resources and ended up with many unresolved crimes.
He said human rights violations had also become the hallmark of some officers who flagrantly disregarded the basic principles of human rights protection, the rule of law and the tenets of democratic policing.
“Besides human rights abuses which manifest in unlawful arrests, detentions, interrogations, many of our officers and men, by their conduct, embarrass their colleagues by engaging in activities which discredit the service and bring its corporate image into ruins,” he noted.