Plans to prevent gunshots, violence during elections under discussion – Police service

Director of Public Affairs at the Ghana Police Service, Mrs Sheila Buckman has indicted that her outfit is in talks with the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders to put in place measures that will curtail any form of violence during the upcoming 2020 elections.

There have been concerns that the December elections could degenerate following pockets of violence which were recorded during the just ended voters registration exercise.

In an interview with GhanaWeb, Mrs Buckman stated that the outfit is aware of the potential violence that could arise in a high stakes elections and as such are mapping up strategies to cull such occurrences.

“Such plans are under discussion so when we are done we can properly tackle the issue. A lot of education will help. Nobody anticipated people walking about carrying guns in registration centres licenced or unlicensed. We will have to discuss this with the electoral commission and all the parties involved because we do not have the authority to prevent people from moving around across the country. We can only provide the necessary security. No law in a democratic society allows that” she indicated.

She added that these stakeholders will also have to agree on the rightful sanctions to apply to offenders.

“We need a lot of engagements between the stakeholders to be able to agree on what terms. In that case, it becomes an agreement that will be backed by some kind of sanctions for whoever flouts it,” she stated.

Meanwhile, some centres during the just ended voter’s registration exercise were engulfed with all kinds of violence resulting in a loss of life in Banda, in the Bono Region.

Some civil society groups have since condemned such acts, calling on security agencies to investigate the issue as a matter of urgency to bring the perpetrators to book.