POLICE NEED 28,000 MORE PERSONNEL TO MEET UNITED NATION BENCHMARK
The Ghana Police Service (GPS)
has a shortfall of about 28,000 personnel, leaving the nation still short of
the required ratio of one police officer to a number of civilians. The United
Nations (UN) benchmark is one police officer to 500 people. As of 2014, the GPS
was about 30,635, giving a police-population ratio of 1:784. Officials say
although the government has given approval for a recruitment exercise, the
process is yet to be advertised and implemented according to the new guidelines
on enlistment.
At a sensitization workshop for
senior police officers in Wa in the Upper West Region last Thursday, Deputy
Superintendent of Police (DSP), Mr Henry Ayisi Mensah, said the shortfall in
the workforce of the GPS had been one of the challenges of effective policing
in the country.
The situation notwithstanding, he
said, the service now desired greater professional work from personnel to
effectively implement the transformational agenda of the Inspector General of
Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu.
THE WORKSHOP
The workshop, sponsored by a
German non-governmental organisation (NGO), Hanns Seidel Foundation, is the
starting phase of an agenda designed by the Inspector General of Police on assumption of office this
year.
It is being held in turns across
the 11 police regions in the country to sensitise personnel to the new way of
operations of the service and its demands on officers and men. The
transformation agenda of the GPS essentially seeks to create a new and
favourable image for the service through professionalism and commitment to its
mandate.
SENSITIZATION
WORKSHOP
DSP Mensah said statistics
indicated that police personnel were inadequate in the 11 police regions, the
nearly 300 police districts and the more than 1,000 police stations across the
country.
Speaking as one of the two
resource persons at the workshop, he said new police districts were about to be
created as part of a national effort to overcome the changing dynamics of the
policing landscape in the country.
INSURANCE
PACKAGE
DSP Peter Toobu, who is the
Executive Secretary to the IGP, said the new insurance package for police
officers must be a morale booster as the service underwent a transformational
phase.
The insurance package, which is
expected to start in January, 2018, includes a compensation package of
GH¢50,000 to the family of any officer who dies in the line of duty. The
collaboration between the GPS and the SIC Insurance Company also involves sponsoring
the education of three children of any police officer up to the university
level upon the death of the officer.
It also has a GH¢25,000 package
for any officer who is maimed or permanently incapacitated or left with a
permanent disability. DSP Toobu said the insurance package was intended to
attract quality professionals into the service to transform it into a
world-class law enforcement agency.
The Deputy Commander of the Upper
West Regional Police Command, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Edward Oduro
Kwarteng, said it had become inevitable for the GPS to “embrace new ways of
effectively and efficiently managing its human resource to achieve its primary
objective of combating crime,” and be innovative in its quest to achieve its
mission and vision.
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