Upper West Police Officers Grumbling

Tension is brewing in the police in the Upper West Region as some personnel have threatened to lay down their arms in protest of what they say was unfair treatment meted out to them by the police administration.

A police source told The Herald that there is general disenchantment among the rank and file of the region. This according to the source was as a result of the failure of the police administration to address pertinent issues bordering on personal and professional development of personnel

Among some of the issues for which they are agitating, are the failure of the police administration to grant study leave to personnel who have qualified for it in the region. Inadequate logistics for their operations, failure of personnel transferred from other regions to the Upper West to report, and lack of requisite personnel to man most police stations in the region, among others.

Meanwhile, independent report picked from the Ashanti Region and Eastern Region reveals that some senior officers had been in these regions for, in some cases, over twenty years, and had become lords, dispensing justice and extorting monies from poor and innocent citizens.

Back in the Upper West Region, the police source said, even though the police regulation stipulated that personnel who work for a minimum of eight years qualify for study leave, some personnel who have worked in some cases for more than ten years and applied for study leave from the region have been denied access.

To our source, the situation was peculiar to only Upper West Region as their counter parts in the other are granted study leave without discrimination.

“Will you believe that for thirteen years running only two personnel who are also senior officers have been granted study leave in the whole region? What is happening to us the constables and other ranks?” He queried.

In addition to the failure to grant study leave to personnel in the region, he said the police administration had failed to act on personnel who blatantly fail to take their post in the region when they are transferred here.

“My information is that most of the personnel in the region were recruits posted to the region when they passed out from their respective depots and have stayed as corporals and other ranks for all this while.

Personnel who are transferred from other region to the Upper West do not come to take their post except those who do not have big men at the Police Headquarters to cancel their transfers that come,” He explained.

He said majority of the personnel were happy when the current Inspector General of Police (IGP) announced on assumption of office that all personnel who had spent five years and above in Accra and Kumasi would be transferred, however, ever since the announcement nothing had been down about it.

In the area of transportation he said nearly all the operational vehicles for the service were broken down and even the one that was available was not reliable as it easily breaks down during operations.

He said personnel in the region continued to risk their lives during operations because they lacked the requisite logistics that would enable them operate effectively.

The source said several petitions to various quarters had not yielded any positive results and therefore personnel were left with no option but to lay down their arms in protest to this treatment.

He said if immediate action was not taken to remedy the situation, sooner than later the whole country would witness a strike action by Police personnel from the Upper West Region.

“This would be the first of its kind in the country and we mean it. We are therefore appealing to the Minister of Interior, who happens to be a son of the Upper West, to sit up to ensure that the image of the police in the region is improved,” he said.

Meanwhile the Regional Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Kofi Danso Addai Acheampong has assured The Herald that there was no cause for alarm as no such action would take place.

He said some of the issues being raised were issues which were been worked on by both the police administration and the regional command.

Mr. Acheampong said there was no deliberate attempt to deny persons who qualified for study leave access, rather most of the persons who are making the noise do not in the first place qualify for study leave.

On people’s refusal to accept transfer postings into the region, he said there was no way any personnel transferred administratively could refuse to take up his or her post, however, the problem of accommodation often militated against such arrangements.

He said much was being done to improve on the accommodation stock of the service in the region and once that was done the problem would be a thing of the past, adding that “there are rules and regulations that governs the service and any individual or group of service personnel who have grievances must channel it through the laid down procedure.”

Mr. Acheampong said the service would not tolerate any form of indiscipline as it would deal with any individual or group that violates the service regulations decisively without fear or favour.

He admonished personnel who were nursing the idea of mutiny to reconsider their thinking as they would not be spared if caught in any unlawful act.