Police ban PRO from Speaking to Press!

The Police Administration headed by Mr Ernest Owusu Poku, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) is said to have barred its Ashanti Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) from ever talking to the press, the private Daily Guide reports.

Disclosing this last Wednesday, a source at the Police Headquarters said the Head of the Police Public Relations Directorate Unit in the Ashanti Region, Superintendent Mr. Angwubutoge Awuni who faces severe disciplinary action if he should speak to the press again, was barred following a publication in an Accra weekly.

In the said publication, Awuni was quoted as saying that though there are corrupt elements in the police service, there is corruption in many other institutions, so people should stop pointing fingers at the police alone." He also accused the judiciary of being corrupt.

Inspector Awuni, who used to be Head of the Police Public Relations in Accra, was reacting to an allegation that a policeman had arrested and locked up a young man for accusing him (policeman) of accepting a bribe from a tro-tro driver.

Supt. Awuni was quoted by the weekly as saying "there had been occasions when police personnel had arrested suspects and arraigned them before court only for judges to take bribes from the suspects and set them free."