Kumasi, April 24, GNA – Personnel of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Police Service have been urged to intensify their intelligence gathering activities in order to provide accurate and timely information for the prevention of crimes in the country.
Mrs. Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, the Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP), who made the call, said intelligence gathering was vital for the police in fighting crime.
She was addressing Divisional, District and Departmental Commanders and other officers and men of the Service at her maiden visit to the Ashanti Region in Kumasi on Friday.
Mrs. Mills-Robertson the situation where CID personnel allowed “uniformed men” to arrest criminals before they initiated investigations should stop.
She also charged the personnel to conduct thorough study of the
crime trend in the communities in order to be on top of security situations.
The Acting IGP said through efficient and proper intelligence gathering, armed robbery cases could be reduced to the barest minimum. Mrs. Mills-Robertson said even though reports indicated that armed robbery cases in the region had been reduced from 72 in the first quarter of 2008 to 69 in the same period in 2009, there was
the need for the police to work harder to reduce the figure. She stressed that “Your target should be to bring it further down
to a single digit”, and said the Service was planning to institute an
award scheme to reward regions which would record no armed
robbery case in a whole year.
Mrs. Mills-Robertson said the public expected a lot from the
police and they should desist from acts that would bring the image
of the Service into disrepute. She said the Police administration would soon embark on a regular in-service training for personnel to enable them provide
appropriate answers to questions posed to them by the public in the
course of performing their duties. Mrs. Mills-Robertson expressed concern about criticism
from some members of the public when the police tried to apply and
enforce certain laws which had been relaxed.
The Acting IGP said such unjustifiable criticisms often interfered with the work of personnel and called on the public to help the Service to enforce laws in the country. She also called on the public to assist the police to
promote effective community policing to prevent crimes. Mrs. Mills-Robertson said management of the Service
was instituting measures to provide decent accommodation and
logistics for its personnel and urged them to enforce law and order
and work harder to raise the image of the Service. Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Kwasi Mensah
Duku, Acting Ashanti Regional Commander of Police, mentioned
accommodation and logistics as some of the problems facing
personnel in the region. He said personnel were working hard to combat crime in
the region and commended the media for supporting the police in
crime prevention.
Source: GhanaWeb
