The Police Administration and the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit
(MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service are strategising to take a firm
action to redeem itself from the perceived image of a corrupt
institution. It has promised to arrest and prosecute bribe givers and
takers alike, since it directly contravenes the constitution of the
republic.
In
an exclusive interview with The Chronicle in Accra yesterday, the
Deputy Commander of the MTTU, Superintendent Addison Campbell said "if
any policeman is caught in the act of extortion, he or she will be
dealt with as per the Police Service Act." The offender would also be
prosecuted at the law court.
According to her, it is high time
Ghanaians came to the realisation that both the giver and the taker of
bribe are equally guilty before the law, hence the need to put a stop
to such practices.
This was in reaction to a series of
allegations against some officers and men of the Police, especially
those personnel in the MITU who are accused of taking bribes from
defaulting drivers and suspects and thereby compromise justice.
Though
some of the officers and men of the Police Service are trying
strenuously to safeguard and redeem the image of the service, a few
unscrupulous ones are still engaged in unwholesome practices which
continue to be a bother to several other Ghanaians and the Police
Service itself.
After months of investigations, The Chronicle
discovered that some Policemen, especially those in the MTTU had
devised new methods to arrest and impound vehicles which flout traffic
regula¬tions. These policemen hide behind shops for drivers and
vehi¬cles to either park or offload pas¬sengers at spots marked as ‘no
parking’ areas in order to affect their arrest.
Instead of
showing up at these spots to ward off recalcitrant drivers, the
policemen choose to hide and allow them to flout the law and then
arrest them.
The offending drivers who are threatened with prosecution are seen back on the road a few minutes after their arrest.
Some
of the police personnel operate on the Achimota-Mallam highway, Kwame
Nkrumah Circle and in the Central Business area of Accra,.
From
the accounts of some of these drivers, the police sometimes arrest them
and their mates, only to collect money from them and then release their
impounded vehicles.
But Superintendent Campbell says the
practice is unprofessional since it does not conform to the basic
tenets of policing. To her, since the mere sighting of a police¬man in
uniform would prevent peo¬ple from flouting the traffic laws, there was
no need for the police to adopt unprofessional methods in their
policing duties.
She asked police personnel involved in such
practices to put a stop to the habit, since anybody found in such an
act is likely to face ser¬vice enquiry.
Credit: The Chronicle
