The development, according to bosses at the Odorkor branch of the MTTU, is a clear manifestation that personnel there don’t take bribes from drivers and are committed to enforcing the road traffic laws to the letter.
The disclosure comes at a time when some officers of the Police Service on the nation’s roads are widely perceived as deeply corrupt and would stop at nothing to extort at least GH¢5.00 from drivers who commit road offences.
The commander of the Odorkor MTTU office, DSP Felix Toya, in an interview with The Heritage newspaper, said the successes chalked by his outfit show how clean some police officers are: “we could have taken bribes and not sent the cases to court, but because we are serious we send them to court.”
DSP Toya suggested that, as part of measures to curb police bribe taking on the roads, a percentage of the fines imposed by the courts for various driving offences be given to the officers who arrest the drivers to serve as incentives.
Documents and receipts disclosed to the paper at the Odorkor MTTU office indicate that, almost every week, a good number of drivers, both private and commercial, are hauled to the courts for various traffic offences and fined various sums to serve as deterrent to others.
From March 1 to 14, for instance, the unit bagged as much as GH¢7,420.00 from court fines for the state over such offences as driving on the wrong side of the road, driving without seat belts, use of motor bikes for commercial purposes and overloading that pose danger to other road users.
The fines range from GH¢240.00, GH¢480.00 to GH¢600.00, depending on the nature of the offence committed. Sergeant Michael Adranyi, the officer responsible for processing and taking stock of the court fines for the unit, also insisted that the huge sums of monies generated through arrests by his outfit show that “indeed, we are working according to the law; can you imagine how much I can get from this?”
A section of drivers interviewed, however, insisted that some of the police officers continue to take bribes from them. “It is only when you are unable to pay what they demand from you that they rush you to court!”
Continued here: