General News of Thursday, 22 July 2021
Source: GNA
2021-07-22
James Oppong-Boanuh is the outgoing IGP
Members of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Goal 16 sub-platform have called on Mr James Oppong-Boanuh, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), to review training modules of Police recruits to make them more human rights sensitive.
They said that would go a long way to improve Ghana Police Service-citizen relations and crowd control.
A 10-member delegation from different Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) suggested this when they paid a courtesy call on the IGP at the National Police Headquarters in Accra.
The visit was to discuss and dialogue on the current state of security in the country and how CSOs can help to improve the situation.
The CSOs also suggested that the IGP and his administration increased Police to citizen ratio, visibility of the police, review Police recruitment policies to avoid politicisation of the Police Service, improve the professionalism of the Police to improve the public trust, and collaborate more with CSOs.
The Group said the recent spate of armed robberies in Accra and across the country, including broad daylight robberies resulting in the loss of lives and property were incidents that generated cause for worry.
They said the Ejura shooting incident currently under investigation, the #FixThe Country brouhaha, the imminent threat of terrorist attacks were also some of the worrying indicators, which necessitated the audience with the IGP.
The IGP expressed gratitude to the Group for the concern about Ghana’s security and the initiative for the dialogue.
He described the Ejura killings as unfortunate and said the Police was arranging to hold counsel with families of the victims.
Mr Oppong-Boanuh said though the crime rate seemed to be on the rise in 2021, the numbers were not more than that of 2020 around the same time last year.
He said the Police was working to overcome challenges to improve the security situation.
The IGP encouraged the CSOs to regularly engage the populace on laws regarding peace and security.