Accra, Aug. 19, GNA - Mr. Paul Quaye, Inspector General of Police (IGP) on Wednesday told the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the Ghana Police Service would not be able to meet the United Nations standards of having 40,000 police men by 2010.
"It is also going to be impossible to have a ratio of one policeman to 500 people by 2010 as stipulated by UN standards, considering our current figure of 23,000 policemen". Mr. Quaye who was answering questions pertaining to the Auditor- General's Report said lack of accommodation, poor remuneration and logistics were hampering the annual recruitment of the service and other developmental progress.
Under the United Nations standards, Ghana is suppose to have 40,000 policemen and a ratio of one policeman to 500 people, to qualify Ghanaians to become security conscious. The IGP said lack of refresher courses for officers were some of the challenges that were preventing the service from meeting the UN standards.
He said because the police barracks were congested the service resorted to renting private residential accommodation for the personnel. The IGP said sometimes the Police Administration had to delay payments of rent due to late arrival of funds. Mr. Quaye appealed to the government to allow the service to retain part of their internally generated funds to enable them to take care of maintenance works.
He gave the assurance that works on uncompleted police buildings scattered all over the country would soon be revamped. Mr. Cletus Avoka, Minister of the Interior called on the public to co-operate with the police to execute security issues to facilitate freedom of movement.
Mr. Kan Dapaah, said Ghana could facilitate good governance by supporting the security agencies and called on the government to improve accommodation facilities of the police service.
He also appealed to the government to allocate funds for the Estates Department of the service to settle its indebtedness to avoid frequent confrontations with landlords.
