Four police residential housing projects abandoned in Agona Swedru

Accra, July 20, GNA - Four residential housing projects meant for the police in Agona Swedru, in the Central Region have been abandoned since the 1970s whilst parts of the land has been encroached, DCOP Stephen Kwofie, Central Regional Police Commander said on Monday.

This was made known when members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defense visited the area to familiarize themselves with the accommodation problems associated with policing in the area.

DCOP Kwofie said that the police inspectors live in single bedroom apartment in the Town and individual police personnel who are faced with accommodation difficulty have to occupy rooms in the uncompleted one story building.

He said the present Divisional Headquarters building was to be a residential apartment but is being used as an office adding, budgetary allocation had not been forthcoming even though the problem has always been placed on the national budget.

Mr. Samuel Lartey, Deputy Regional Commander, said the police had no documents for the land and would find it difficult to defend if its ownership became a source of litigation.

Chief Superintendent Owusu Donyinah, Divisional Police Commander of Swedru, said the station lacked logistics in terms of patrol vehicles and communication gadgets.

He said the common crime used to be internet fraud but now assault, defilement and rape top the list.

The team also visited the Regional Police Training School where, an Assistant Superintendent of Police told them that since 2005, the school had trained 1, 433 personnel of whom 409 are female.

He said thought there were no abandoned building projects, there was need to renovate some of the buildings especially the dinning hall, boys dormitory, fence wall need to be strengthened as the parade square needed to be tarred.

He added that the school had acquired a plot of land of about 38.83 acres meant for the court, Electricity Company and police with documents processed at a cost of 200 Ghana Cedis.

Alhaji Abubakar Sumani, Chairman of the Committee, said the committee would liaise with the Inspector General of Police to get an Executive Instrument (EI) to cover all police lands.

He said the Attorney General's Department was working on the EI to ensure that all properties were properly acquired.

Alhaji Summani commended the police for risking their lives to protect law abiding people in the community.