Police evict squatters at barracks

Page 3: Daily Graphic, December 23, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Accra South District Police yesterday embarked on an exercise to rid its barracks of squatters, following a directive by the Inspector-General of Police for the eviction of all unauthorised persons from police barracks.
Although majority of the squatters managed to escape before the exercise got to them, 14 of them were arrested and thrown out of their makeshift abodes.
Those arrested are also to be prosecuted for unlawful entry and illegal habitation of police barracks.
The Accra South District Police Commander, Superintendent Aboagye Sarpong, who led the exercise about am, said more than 100 people were illegally living at the police barracks in Accra Central alone.
He explained that most of the squatters might have had a hint of the exercise after the Accra Regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Bio Atinga, and other senior officers toured the barracks last Monday.
He, however, said the exercise would be sustained to get rid of all the squatters.
Supt Sarpong said the squatters were using facilities such as bath houses, toilets and pipe stands with the police personnel and their families.
He said it was common to find some of the squatters challenging the legal occupants of the barracks over the usage of the facilities.
“Sometimes the squatters engage our wives and children in fights over who has the right to use the bath houses or toilets,” he lamented.
Supt. Sarpong said the police would extend the exercise to cover motorists who parked their vehicles on the compounds of the barracks and police stations to go and trade in the various markets and shops.
According to him, some of them often entered the barracks to park as if they were visiting people there or had something to do at the police station, creating more congestion at the barracks and the police stations.
He said such persons only returned after 5 p.m. to drive their vehicles away.
The IGP, Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, last week called for the immediate eviction of unauthorised persons from the various police barracks across the country.
He said the situation where personnel had vacated their barracks and their accommodation sublet to their relatives, while some personnel slept on verandas and in the open, would no longer be tolerated.