The United Kingdom (UK), under the auspices of the Department for International Development (DFID), has launched a two-week tactical training course for some officers of the Ghana Police Service in a bid to equip them on public order management ahead of the December polls.
The course, which opened on Monday, May 14, 2012 at the Police Headquarters in Accra, is the first in a series of training programmes for 16,000 security officers drawn from the various security services.
They would mainly be trained in election security and election laws.
Also 11 national communication base stations would be created across the country to enable nationwide radio communication for the police service.
The beneficiary officers would not be trained in only public order management but also intelligence gathering.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Country Director of DFID, Danny Graymore, observed that Ghana has become a beacon of hope in the West Africa sub-region.
Ghana must therefore ensure that the police have the right skills and are positioned in the right place at the right time to make right decisions when the need arise while employing new tactics when new risks emerge, he indicated.
He urged Ghana not to leave events to chance but plan in advance against any unforeseen circumstances, adding that the public expect that the police to remain bi-partisan and impartial to ensure peaceful and credible elections.
Mr. Graymore said even though the challenges are daunting evidence from the participation of the Ghana Police in peace-keeping operations showed that the police were up to the task.
The Director-General, Operations, COP John Kudalor, said the training could not have come at a better time since the police service was fervently preparing to ensure successful polls.
He said even though the police had chalked a lot of successes in its quest to maintain law and order to ensure that businesses thrive in a peaceful atmosphere, it needed such courses to enhance the professional posture of the service.
He urged beneficiaries to translate the theoretical knowledge and skills they would acquire during the training into practice by bringing it to bare on operations.
The police boss commended the UK government and the DFID for the immense support, stressing that their interest to build the capacity of the Ghana Police Service to attain a higher standard is duly recognized.
The Deupty IGP, Mohamed Alhassan observed that even though Ghana has gone through previous elections successfully, there was the need to adequately prepare for the impending polls since no two elections were the same.
He urged police personnel not to use force in managing public order, adding that the course would boost the capacity of the various Command and Control Centres (ops rooms) across the country.
One of the resource persons, Pat McKay reiterated the need for Ghana to prepare adequately for the polls to avoid several wars that took place in neighboring countries.
