Police patrols grind to a halt as fuel depot shuts down

Policing in Ghana is grinding to halt as a result of the unavailability of fuel for police patrol vehicles.

Operational activities and the night patrolling in the capital have already been affected by the fuel situation and armed robbers are said to be having a field day, especially at night.

Citi News sources within the service say the Police have struggled to deal with the recent spate of armed robbery activities, particularly in Ashongman, Kwabenya, Legon, Adenta, all in Accra, because of the situation with the fuel.

Police vehicles assigned to police commanders and operational vehicles have not had access to fuel for the last five weeks and the situation is said to have worsened in the last two weeks.

Some divisional commanders and district commander are reported to be using their own money to fuel some of these police patrol vehicles.

Depending on their schedules, police vehicles receive up to about 22 litres of fuel each day from the fuel depot at the main pump station opposite the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) office at 37. But that fuel depot has now been shut down.

Police sources, that go on operational patrols, have revealed that they normally have to park their cars when they should be on routine patrols of neighbourhoods because they do not have enough fuel in their tanks.

This essentially means they remained parked till they hear of an emergency, but in some cases, the police do not even have enough fuel to attend to the emergencies that come up.

Indications from some police sources are that the Ghana Police Service owes GOIL a substantial amount of money and this may have directly affected the fuel situation.

–
By: Franklin Badu Jnr/citifmonline.com/Ghana