Police to acquire more riot control vehicles -IGP

Koforidua, July 22, GNA- The Police is to acquire more riot control vehicles to help reduce the presence of armed police personnel at demonstrations and their direct contact with rioters. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Patrick Acheampong, disclosed this at a durbar with officers and men of the Police Service at Koforidua on Saturday, as part of his four-day tour of the Eastern Region.

As part of the tour, Mr Acheampong on Friday, inaugurated the first 22-member Eastern Regional Police Committee under the chairmanship of the Regional Minister, Mr Yaw Barimah, at Koforidua. Mr Acheampong said the Ghana Police Service is to acquire a new automatic finger print machine and an operational uniform under a Spanish Protocol signed between the Ghanaian and Spanish Governments. He explained that, the new operational uniform of the Service would be the same for all police officers and the men, saying the uniforms would arrive by next January.

Mr Acheampong called on District Assemblies and communities to help in the provision of accommodation for the Service because it did not have the necessary financial resources it required for the expansion and rehabilitation of its old buildings.

The Chief Staff Officer to the IGP, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Patrick Timbila, said it was the desire of the new Police Administration to expand the Police Service to correspond with the socio-political expansions in the country.

He said the Police Administration is to establish Regional Police Dance Bands where 60 per cent of the recruits would be from the region with 40 per cent of the members of the band being women. Mr Timbila explained that the dance bands would be used to promote police community relations and to disseminate police policies. In a welcoming address, the Eastern Regional Commander of Police, ACP Felix Asare-Darko, said the Service needed good vehicles for patrol duties and the transportation of personnel to operations in the region.

He said the region also required more police personnel for patrol duties in some towns and communities, complaining that the region had many vacant rooms in many districts because some personnel who were transferred from the region were not yet replaced.