Come 2019, The Igp And His Pomab Members Should Resolve To Make The Police Service Better Than How They Came To Meet It

TODAY is the last day of the year 2018 and we need to do some serious retrospections and introspections as a police service as the year gradually rolls away in some hours to come. A lot happened in our lives as police officers and as an organisation during the year so we need to critically examine our lives and renew our spirits going forward.

It is time to close all accounts, take stock, balance and reconcile the books and then make projections and resolutions for the coming year with renew hopes and aspirations. The police service must not be left out in that aspect. Under the watch of the IGP and his POMAB members, we should be seeing a better police service than what we have seen in times passed hopefully next year.

Come 2019, the IGP and his POMAB members should be proud of themselves if they should take stock of their achievements in the police service. They should be able to congratulate themselves, beat their chests high in confidence and say proudly that they have been able to make the police service better than how they came to meet it.

How did they come to meet the police service and how do they intend to leave it behind? How do they want posterity to remember and judge them? Are they leaving the police service better than they came to meet it or worse off than how they came to meet it?

This is the most challenging question that every leader leading an organisation like the police service must try to answer it honestly. When all is said and done, and after life in the police service is over for them, will they look back and be proud of their achievements in the police service? Will we also remember them that indeed, they pathed a course to truly transform the police service or we will soon forget them after they step out of the corridors of the police service?

What legacy can young ones like us someday pinpoint and say that those are the handiworks of Mr. David Asante-Appeatu during his days as the Inspector-general of police? There has been some success stories across but a lot more still needs to be done. The police service needs to be moved much further to a modernised police organisation than what it is now. For now, our police service still grinds on colonial and obsolete wheels and structures.

Unfortunately the police service is such that no one holds leaders accountable whether they are doing well in their respective capacities or not. Whether an IGP delivers on his mandate or not, no one questions it until such a time that the IGP retires or remove from office. No one knows the status of the police service before an IGP comes to office and again, no one knows the status of the police service when he leaves the office for another to come.

That is the status quo that we all came to meet so, we are maintaining it to our own detriments. The status quo that things are done like the days of Captain Glover and his 700 Hausa men who walked all the way from Northern Nigeria to Gold Coast to form the Gold Coast constabulary. Nobody is ready to depart from the status quo to chart a more progressive path for the police service to follow.

Come 2019, the IGP and his POMAB members should be able to say that they have been able to improve on the standards of policing than what they came to meet, and made drastic changes to make Ghana Police Service a modernised police organisation. They should be able to review the year 2018 and note down their successes and failures, and map out strategies to improve on where they failed and better their lots on where they succeeded for there is always room for improvements.

Until such a time that we begin to see the police officers to be more of modern day beings with emotional and psychological needs, no efforts geared towards transforming the police service will yield the needed result. It is all exercise in futility and much more of surface washing. It is time we value our human resource and make considerable efforts to protect the dignity of the police officer before we can realise the values of transforming the police service.

It is time to collectively restructure the police service to meet the standards of a modern day police organisation by realising that the police officer is a being who needs to rest but not to be continously stressed up with 12 hours duty schedules for all year long as it is happening now though we claim to transform the police service. The attitudinal transformation must start from the top and trickle down to us. We must all see conscious efforts being put in place by the police administration in reducing the slavery working hours to stipulated 8 hours in a day.

There should be a new attitude and mindsets that place value on the police officer but not the same old attitude of absolute disrespect and abuse of those below ranks and the feeling of making them to work to death under the guise that there are shortage of personnel even though that seem not to be the case. People should begin to feel that whether they will be happy if their sons and daughters are suppressively and oppressively made to work 12 hours or more for 365 days.

Their biggest resolution come 2019 is how to turn this coveè system of policing where the police officer is much of a slave to a modernised police service where the police officer is a dignified being who is considered a worker and so needs to work for 8 hours. People in strategic positions should resolve to understand that the police officer is a human being who can be stressed up just like them if he or she continues to work for 12 or more hours in a day for the whole year.

This thinking of seeing the police officers like slaves who should work without rest must stop if indeed, we are committed to transforming the police service. Police all over the world are overstretched as far as manpower deployments are concerned. The difference is how they effectively utilise their human resource based on the organisational needs and make them work within the stipulated working hours, and not to stress them to death.

The Ghana Police Service can equally do so because our IGP and his POMAB members are more than competent to do that without difficulties. They have what it takes to transform the police service with little commitments and dedication to duty. No one doubts their capabilities and competences at all. We are urging them on to continously transform the police service by rolling out strategic policies in a bid to reduce working hours of police officers from 12 or more hours in a day to the stipulated 8 hours.

Some us are hopping that the police administration will do their maximum best to ensure that police officers are not overstretched in the name of exigencies going into the future by ensuring fair distribution of personnel across board. We are hoping that the police administration will strictly ensure that working hours of the police officer is brought down to 8 hours and in the course of the week, the police officer is at least given a day off to rest.

The CI 76 states categorically clear that working hours shall be 8 hours and that is it. After 8 hours, the police officer must close and go home to take some rest and come back to work the following day with energised spirits. The framers of the law knew the need and importance of rest for police officers that is why they made the law for the police officer to work for 8 hours.

They only time the police officer needs to work beyond 8 hours is when there are exigencies. In times of exigencies, the law still stipulates that the police officer must be paid adequate monetary compensation. That has never been the case in the police service as personnel are forced to work beyond 8 hours without the adequate monetary compensation which the law states.

The transformation agenda must address payments of adequate monetary compensation to police officers who work all year long without rest. The IGP and his POMAB members must strictly enforce the 8 hours duty to schedule for us to see the true definition of the transformation agenda.

Come 2019, they should resolve to give police officers and their families descent accommodation which suit the status of modern police officers. They should resolve to regularly police officers with uniforms and boots as well as other accoutrement that the police officer needs to his work effectively and efficiently.

Above all, they should resolve to reduce officer mortality in line of duties and also take care of wives and children of deceased police officers who fell in line of duties in the course of year and years passed.

I wish the IGP and his POMAB members prosperous new year. I wish them good health and prosperity and above all long life. A life so long like the days of Methusalah on earth.

Ahanta Apemenyimheneba Kwofie III
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