Step up crime preventive measures - IGP

Page 23: Daily Graphic, January 15, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr P. K. Acheampong, has directed that all regional, divisional and district commanders of police must adopt effective crime prevention strategies and concentrate their activities on crime fighting.
He said although there had been a change in government, the responsibility of the police in fighting crime remained the same.
That, he said, should compel them to work harder, especially during the early days of the new government, as criminal gangs would want to exploit the situation to cause mayhem.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, Mr Acheampong urged his colleagues to work in the same way that they did during the 2008 elections, which earned them a lot of commendation from the Ghanaian populace, as well as the foreign observer missions.
“You must be seen relating with your communities and be seen to be working harder,” he said.
Mr Acheampong expressed concern about the conduct of some police officers who were undermining their colleagues and planting negative stories in the media with the view of getting appointed to various positions by the new government, instead of doing the work for which they were being paid.
He urged such personnel to be mindful of the corporate image of the Ghana Police Service and work to achieve its mission.
“Planting negative stories about your colleagues for favours is bad,” he said.
He was particularly concerned about those seeking to be appointed IGP by the new government and reminded them that undermining the very officers one would work with when appointed the IGP was bad.
Mr Acheampong urged them to lobby on their strengths and not by undermining others and stop peddling falsehoods about other officers.
He also urged media practitioners to endeavour to verify information given to them before publishing it.
He also recalled that after December 7, he (IGP) gave directives to all Regional Commanders to shuffle all divisional and district personnel for the run-off because they were being accused of bias but said some Regional Commanders were being wrongly accused.
Fortunately, he said, after those reshuffles, the results of the run-off were the same as those of the first round, which indicated that the police had no hand in the results.