OFFICIAL OPENING OF DETECTIVE TRAINING COURSE 1-2012 HELD

A capacity-building in line with contemporary policing is extremely crucial for the economic growth and survival of every state, Mr Prosper Kwame Agblor, Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, has stated.

Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Agblor said it was in the light of this realization that the Police Administration had embodied training and retraining in a five-year Strategic National Policing Plan (SNPP), spanning the period 2010 to 2014.

DCOP Agblor said under the SNPP, the vision of the Ghana Police Service was to become a world class Police Service, capable of delivering planned, democratic and proactive services comparable to international standards and professional best practices.

He said flowing from this vision was the mission of the CID in the prevention and detection of crime and the apprehension and prosecution of offenders. DCOP Agblor was speaking at the opening of the first six-week detective training course for the year 2012 in Accra, yesterday.

DCOP Agblor said in order to keep pace with the increasing sophistication in the commission of crime, the CID had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a cyber security and electronic crime (e-crime) investigations specialist firm—e-Crime Bureau Incorporated— to embark on a project dubbed: 'the e-Crime Project', under which the capacity of the CID would be built in the area of e-crime investigations and cyber intelligence gathering.

He said the aim of the project was to develop a national investigative response to the emergence of cybercrimes and other electronic-based criminal activities in Ghana and the West Africa sub-region.

In her remarks, the Director of Training at the CID, Chief Superintendent Mrs Mamee Yaa Addo-Danquah, noted that crime investigations required special knowledge and skills—hence the need to build capacity within the CID.

A Press released from the CID Administration signed by Chief Superintendent Addo-Danquah said, had, therefore, spared no effort in ensuring that the course was comprehensively designed and tailored to equip participants with the requisite knowledge and skills to make them more efficient on the job.

The e-Crime Project focuses on five key areas, namely, training for the detectives in the area of digital forensics, internet investigations and cyber intelligence; the setting up of a CID detectives training laboratory for the practical delivery of the training programmes; the setting up of an e-Crime laboratory at the CID Forensic Science Laboratory to facilitate computer-related forensic investigations; the setting up of a Cyber Intelligence Gathering system to gather intelligence on cyberspace criminal actors; and the development of a mechanism for effective cybercrime reporting to the CID.

Meanwhile the Project requires funding support in the form of grants and donations from corporate bodies, multi-national companies, international development agencies, foreign governments as well as non-governmental organizations, professional bodies and private individuals in order to be able to successfully implement the five initiatives.