Police will use force to deal with ballot box snatchers

The Police will use force to deal with any person who attempts to or snatches a ballot box, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Kenneth Yeboah, Director General in-charge of Legal of the Ghana Police Service has said.

He said the Police Administration was putting in place all necessary security measures to ensure an incident-free elections, adding "the Service, therefore, would not allow anybody to make our job difficult".

DCOP Yeboah said this when he led a six-member delegation of the National Elections Security Taskforce Sub-Technical Committee to meet with members of the Northern Regional Elections Security Taskforce in Tamale on Wednesday.

The meeting was to enable the Sub-Technical Committee to assess the security preparedness of the Regional Elections Security Taskforce towards the December polls.

DCOP Yeboah said even though the country's elections had been generally peaceful, the Police Administration would not leave anything to chance.

He said police officers who would be deployed to provide security on the polling day would be required to wear official identity cards to avoid situations where unscrupulous persons would want to impersonate police personnel.

He therefore called on the Electoral Commission to ensure that ballot boxes were well-secured and brought to the polling stations on time.

Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister and Chairman of the Regional Security Council lauded the efforts of the Taskforce to ensure peaceful polls.

Mr. Mabengba asked the Police Administration to increase the number of police personnel in the region on polls day because the region had its own challenges.

DCOP George Tuffuor, Northern Regional Police Commander called for the collaboration of all Taskforce members to ensure success of the polls.