The Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko, has cautioned against painting the recent high profile incidents of criminal activity with political colours.
Speaking on The Big Issue, the legislator said the more pressing concern was to ensure the police were properly resourced to match up to the now-better equipped criminals.
“I don’t want us to politicize the matter. This country has not fallen into a dark hole in the last one year. We have had periods of insecurity over a long period. It is getting worse and we must find the wherewithal to confront it,” Mr. Agyarko On the same show, the MP for Wa Central, Rashid Pelpuo had remarked that there was general insecurity in the country and that Ghanaians were becoming terrified.
Their comments follow a recent raid on the Kwabenya District Police Headquarters which led to the killing of a police officer on duty and the freeing of seven persons who were on remand.
In 2017, there were also a couple of similar raids on police stations along with other incidents where police were slain by assailants while on duty. including the killing of a police officer at Lapaz during a robbery in July 2017.
But Mr. Agyarko said there was no cause to blame such incidents on the Akufo-Addo administration because high profile crime had been occurring beyond the past year, notably the murder of the late MP for Abuakwa North, J.B. Danquah-Adu at his home in 2016.
“We shouldn’t create a certain impression that in the last one year or so, the security situation in this country has deteriorated and it has never been seen before. It is absolutely not true. I don’t think that the limited police statistics we have bare out that fact.”
“We are not funding our security agencies enough to even catch up with them. Indeed, they must not only lay catch up, they must be ahead of them,” he added.
Lip service from government
Also speaking on, The Big Issue Imani Africa President, Franklin Cudjoe, has noted the mere lip service from politicians as one the reasons Ghana the Ghana Police Service is in a “decrepit” state.
Franklin Cudjoe said the Service was in need of serious help if they were to execute their mandate and protect citizens.
“I don’t think we have a proper police service… of course, it is the doing of successive governments. I am told reliably, with figures, that we are supposed to have about 52,000 police personnel. As we speak, we have about 38,000 and this year, they are only recruiting 4,000.”
Mr.Cudjoe also noted the lack of support for police operations from the state over the past two years.
“The politicians have been paying lip service. Did you know that in 2016, the NDC government gave zero cedis to the police service for its operations of the entire elections? They got zero, nothing… and in 2017 again, they go zero again from the NPP government for their operations,” he said.
