Open Letter To The IGP

Dear Sir,

A good day to you and I believe you are in good health, I received with happiness the presentation of over 200 Toyota Camry vehicles to your outfit by the president on the 26th of October this month; I know you will be glad as I am as it will help you and your team get closer to your goal of making the Ghana police service a world class one.

This year has rather been a challenging one for the Ghana police as your outfit has been plagued with bad public relations for a large part of the year, violent death of personnel, attack of police stations, unjustified killings of innocent Ghanaians and off course you being found guilty of court contempt this month, to mention but a few.

Onthe reverse however, I believe you are putting in spirited efforts behind the scenes to overturn these challenges and continue with your vision of making the police service a well-to-do public organization; I commend you also for the GH¢ 50,000.00 insurance cover you announced October last year for your personnel, I do not know of the progress of this, but if it has been implemented thumbs up to you if not, this is a good initiative and you must not allow it go down the drain.

Sir, i have observed with concern certain issues which needs to be drawn to your attention, the main reasons for which I write this letter; Somewhere 2016, I visited one of your police stations and a thought dropped to mind of which I would like to ask, why don't you have some of your personnel guarding the entrance and exits of your police stations as you have it at your Headquarters and regional offices?; the police stations are security areas which have prisoners in there, at least someone should check who goes in and out of your stations, you may not know who comes there with bad intents.

TheKwabenya police station attack in January this year affirmed my fears and came unsurprising to me. If you had a man or two checking the entrance of the station they would have alerted the others of the impending danger. We are fortunate Ghanaians are peace-loving people and terrorism is rare on our soil, this freedom in and out of your stations would have been exploited massively.

Again Sir, I was “barracks boy”, I was born and bred in a police barracks, it is sad to note that the police station in which I was raised is the same as it was some twenty plus years ago; there has been virtually no facelifts and it is the same for most police barracks in the country. Your personnel size has increased over the years and what we have presently is a significant amount of your personnel living in rented apartments; again this is risky as your men can be targeted by criminals.

I know not of the efforts you and your predecessors have put in place over the years vis-à-vis infrastructural development, but clearly Sir, there is a lot of work to be done in this regard.

Sir, the mobile phone has grown to become a part of the Ghanaian society, since the early 2000's, mobile technology has evolved to more interactive operating systems like Android and IOS (Apple), it appears some of your personnel has been caught in the mobile phone frenzy, I visited a bank sometime back and found one of your personnel with head tilted downwards busily fidgeting with her phone upon my entry, thirty minutes after, upon exiting I found this personnel on the phone same position as I had seen before; the question I asked myself was, what account can she give when something happens out of sight?, and most importantly it's a bank, a risky area as well; I wish you could put in stringent measures to check mobile phone use among your personnel especially when they are in the line of duty.

I do not know how feasible this one is sir, but you know human resource is the pivot for any organizational success, a well-trained police force with a good sense of judgement is a must in your quest to achieving a world class police service; Sir, please check the caliber of people you recruit into the service, the policing job is a risky one and not for the faint hearted, get people who are willing to go the extra mile to serve the interest of Ghanaians.

I refer you to the recent rife between the people of Japekrom and Drobo in the Brong Ahafo region where police personnel who lead them to observe a ritual was nowhere to be found when shots were fired at them leading to the death of one person, this is an eye witness account. The very popular case of Midland savings and loans adds more to the need for you to select people who have the security of Ghanaians at hearts or improve upon the training scheme during recruitment processes.

In addition Sir, I urge that the vehicles given to your outfit last Friday be put to judicious use, these are part of my taxes and other Ghanaians' put together to get you these vehicles; as the president put it last Friday, the service should pay attention to proper maintenance of the vehicles to lengthen their lifespan. There are 10 regions in Ghana and I pray your outfit distributes them accordingly for effective crime combating across the nation.

Sir, in the president's speech, he mentioned the rehabilitation of police stations nationwide as part of reforms to improve the image of the service and standardize infrastructure; I know you will be happy with this, I am too , but I seek that your office will put in every effort to make this a reality; I have seen dotted improvements in some facilities in the capital and few other regions, what we cherish for as a people is a wholesale facelift of police infrastructure to improve service delivery.

The reality stands Sir, that the government chest (finances) isn't so strong to deliver all of what the president promised in the preceding paragraph, your colleague security agencies needs the same attention as your outfit, for this reason I implore you seek alternative sources of finance to renovate some of your police stations, either through your internally generated funds (IGF) or a private partnership to help solve some of your challenges.

In the middle part of this year, I recall you sent men on the ground to reassure Ghanaians of your commitment to protecting them, some of your personnel visited my church and I must commend you for that initiative; this was in the wake of the bad public relations that had plagued your outfit for a large part of the year especially the midland savings and loans saga and the impasse between your men and the military in Tamale. Please make this routine, personnel should make regular visits to strengthen police-public ties.

In summary, I urge that you do your best to improve the image of the service, as you have envisioned for the police, seek the right partnerships to achieve your goals for the service; for what you have achieved already congrats to you, for those you have not there is more room for improvement, Ghana needs a thriving police force to protect its citizens and you find yourself at the apex of its structure; leave a legacy worthy of mentioning when your tenure eventually expires. God bless our homeland Ghana.

Regards.

Abraham Ofori Gyebi