Police Maintainance Culture Is Poor – Amissah-Arthur

The Vice President, His Excellency Paa Kwesi Amissah Arthur has expressed disgust at the poor maintenance culture of the Ghana Police Service, saying that it has contributed to the fast deterioration of their facilities.

He, therefore, warned that if care is not taken most of the police facilities will go bad within the shortest possible time.

According to him, the premises of the police Barracks over the years was under maintained, saying “you will agree with me that the police Baracks maintenance is nothing to write about”.

Mr. Amissah Arthur made the above pronouncement at a ceremony to hand-over a seven unit 42 apartments constructed to accommodate senior police officers at Cantonments, Accra.

The 42-three bedroom flats, The Chronicle learnt, was a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between the government of Ghana and Messers Gold Key/Alema Properties Limited, to provide the police service with decent accommodation.

The Vice President, in doing so, called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Mohammed Ahmed Alhassan to do more in ensuring that the standard of maintenance of the police service was enhanced.

“I am very impressed with the work done so far, even though the police need a total of 42,000 housing units, organizing 42 flats is very important’, he said.

The Director General (Technical) of the Ghana Police Service, Commissioner of Police, Frank Adu Poku on his part said the construction of the seven modern housing units of 42 apartments was parts of efforts to address the accommodation challenges confronting the police Administration by government.

He disclosed that the new construction was commissioned to the developers (Messers Gold Key/Alema Properties Limited) in October, 21, 2009 and had also replaced the existing 22 bungalow being occupied by officers of the police Administration at Cantonments.

Mr. Adu Poku further made known that the redevelopment of the Police Administration had been divided into three projects, and he disclosed the construction of the modern housing units of 42 apartments as the first project.

The rest are redevelopment of existing police station and its surroundings to multi-level office complex and complimentary facilities to house MTTU, District Headquarters, just to mention a few, and redevelopment of lease into modern high class residential area, with complimentary commercial building, which he noted was yet to be commenced.

To this end, he pleaded with the government to enter into similar arrangements with the private sector on some of their lands at Airport, Mobile Force, Service Workshop Barracks, Accra Central, just to mention a few, to assist in reducing their accommodation challenges to the minimum.

In a related development, the Vice President, in an inspection tour of the ongoing New Police Hospital, which has been under construction for the past ten years had disclosed that financing was ready to complete the project in April 2016.

The hospital would be constructed at a total cost of £40 million by the International Hospitals Group.

He was hopeful that the project, if completed, would improve the health delivery system in Ghana, saying “the quality of the hospital is world standard, we pray there should be more of such investment in the country to improve the health status of citizens”, he said.