IGP Pushes For Professionalism And Best Policing Standards

Personnel of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) have been urged to shun negative and unprofessional attitudes in the performance of the work and pursue best practices in policing to create a positive image of the Service.

The Mr. David Asante-Apeatu, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) gave the advice in a speech read on his behalf, at the opening of a two-day Executive Mastery in Organisational Development and Appreciative Leadership (EMODAL) Training workshop for 20 Regional and Unit Commanders of the Service, on Thursday at Abesim, near Sunyani.

It was organised by the Police Administration, the College for Community and Organisational Development (CCOD), University of Development Studies (UDS) and the Institute of Organisational Development (IOD), Florida, in the United States of America.

The Hanns Seidel Foundation, a German non-governmental organisation that advocates and promotes good governance and democratic development provided funding support. The Resource persons were drawn from the CCOD, led by the Dr. Gabriel Gbiel Bernakuu, the IOD, UDS and the GPS.

It was a capacity building programme to fill the gap of bringing Commanders at the Unit, Regional and Police Management Board levels to a standard needed to empower the Transformation Agenda of the GPS.

It was also to build a network and collaboration that would create avenue to sharpen their skills as Regional and Unit Commanders in the broader Transformation Agenda.

Mr. Asante-Apeatu said law enforcement was dynamic and should respond effectively to changing times, saying that, the world had changed so much in the last three decades and the GPS could only rest on its past glory to its disadvantage.

'Crime has become so fluid, distributed over space and time and respects no person, organisation or country, crime anywhere in the world is threat to peace everywhere', he said, stressing the need for inter-departmental, inter-agency and international collaboration to fight crime.

Mr. Asante-Apeatu said transformation could only come a reality, if the individual's mental reformation took the centre stage of the strategy.

The IGP admitted that the Service needed money, equipment and other logistics to enhance its performance, but without a mentally transformed Police officer, the impact of government's total commitment to retooling the Service would hardly be felt because 'quality human resource is an anchor for successful transformations', he added.

He emphasised that the GPS could only become the best in Africa if its transformation agenda becomes every officer's daily business to propagate that vision.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr. Peter Toobu, the Executive Secretary to the IGP and the Coordinator of the GPS's Transformation Agenda Project, later in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, explained that, the Project was in response to the IGP's Transformation Agenda in building the capacity of the Police Command.

He said on assumption of office, the IGP identified three key areas-Money, Machines/Logistics and Quality Manpower, saying government therefore in doing her best to retool the Service had voted GHC800 million to rebuilt its capacity.

DSP Toobu said despite the major support from government, the major concern was the quality human resource, and the Police Administration, in collaboration with the CCOD, UDS and IOD, had designed and developed the EMODAL package to help enhance the capacity of the Regional Commanders and the members of the Police Management Board.