Police Service Gets 8 Drones

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, says the Service has received eight drones from its strategic partners to improve policing and efficiency across the regions.

Speaking at the launch of the Police Transformation Programme in Accra, Mr Asante-Apeatu said the Service had digitised some of the police stations, especially in the Greater Accra Region and individuals could locate them using their google maps to facilitate effective policing.

The IGP said Information and Communication Technology (ICT) remained central in the transformation agenda and the service would therefore provide the necessary training and logistics to the police personnel such as weapons, uniforms, helicopters and boats for the marine police to achieve the objectives of the programme.

He said it had established pre-command centres with the state-of-the-art equipment to handle emergency calls and noted that, since the establishment of those centres, calls to the stations had increased by 400 per cent.

He added that 40 police officers had received training in Geographic Information Systems to enable them to analyse, interpret and understand the patterns of crimes and hot-spots of certain types of crimes to ensure effective deployment.

Currently, he said, the Service is ranked eighth in Africa and 87th out of 127 countries, according to a report released by the World Internal Security and Police Index.

Therefore, he said, the Service intended to become a world class organisation, the best in Africa and top 10 in the world in the next 10 years.

He explained that, the transformation agenda was intended to deal with sophisticated crimes in society and ensure safety for citizens as well as responding rapidly to emergency situations.

The Service had launched Police website and other social media platforms such as twitter, instagram and Facebook to engage and receive feedback from the public, he stated.

Mr Asante-Apeatu said the transformation programme reflected the ideals of the Police Service and democratic values that were relevant to the public, change public perception about the Police and become responsive to the changing society.

'The vision of the Service is to be a world class institution capable of delivering planned, democratic, protective and peaceful services up to standards of international best practice,' he stated.

The IGP noted that the transformation agenda was anchored on the 13 strategic goals of government and the five key thematic areas, namely, ensuring the welfare of the officers on the ground, revamping the community policing and the Criminal Investigation Department, as well as putting the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS) at its rightful position to monitor internal affairs of the Police and information and communication technology.

The IGP explained that, in order to achieve the vision of the programme, it would bring everybody on board, saying; 'We take our reference from the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations number 16, which is the President's Strategic Goal for the Police'.

Mr Asante-Apeatu said the implementation of the strategic goals involved the Minister of the Interior, the Police Management Board and the Regional Police Commanders, as well as the Police Divisions and Districts and the various police stations.

'When we are all focused and on the same platform, it facilitates the achievement of our goals.

'Scheduled officers and regional commanders are to submit their work plans which would be integrated into the national Integrated Police Work Plan for 2018 to monitor and evaluate the activities of all commanders,' he stated.