Bureau receives 864 cases against policemen

Page 46: Daily Graphic, May 5, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau (PIPS) received 864 complaints from all parts of the country against police personnel last year.
Investigations into 551 of the complaints have been completed while 313 cases are still under investigation.
The complaints bordered on extortion, 47; misconduct, 243; misappropriation of exhibits, 53; unprofessional handling of cases, 136, and unlawful arrest and detention, 79.
The rest are police brutality, 67; meddling in civil cases, 96; withholding of exhibits, 66, and harassment and intimidation, 78.
Forty-nine of the police personnel were dismissed in 2009 and 43 interdicted while seven have so far been dismissed in 2010 with 37 on interdiction.
The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, who disclosed this in an interview, explained that other personnel whose offences did not warrant dismissals suffered other forms of punishment including reduction in rank.
He said he made it a policy on assumption of office in May last year that for him to succeed, he had to ensure that the service would not tolerate any offensive acts or misdeeds.
Mr Quaye said such a move was essential to winning the trust and confidence of the people especially the informants.
According to him, the image-cleansing exercise that he declared was paying off as people were not just reporting the misdeeds of police personnel, but that the offenders got punished.
He said personnel who were found to be indulging in criminal practices were dismissed, particularly those who blatantly got involved in crime or colluded with businessmen to defraud.
Mr Quaye said there was a policy in place to identify and flush out such criminal police personnel out of the service.
“The heat is on us because we do not want the public to see us as doing nothing about those criminal characters. We are cleansing ourselves so that we have policemen and women worthy of the uniform to remain and do their work in confidence,” he said.
The IGP said there were some personnel, both superiors and junior ranks, who were even exposing their colleagues to the Police Administration, saying “that should tell you things are now different”.
He said the Police Administration would tackle the image-cleansing agenda more robustly this year and gave the assurance that “we will purge ourselves”.
Mr Quaye said from the beginning of the year, he made it a policy to show a zero tolerance for robbery, respond promptly to distress calls and improve response time.
He said the Police Administration made use of its scarce resources and succeeded in achieving maximum returns.
Mr Quaye attributed the successes so far to the zoning of Accra/Tema into much smaller units and holding commanders accountable for any robberies.
“The credit should come to all of us, especially the informants who have partnered us effectively. For once, they have shown trust and confidence in the Police Administration. They openly come to us without fear of being exposed or cheated. This is something laudable,” he said.