Ghana Police Service lacks proper scrutiny – Security Analyst

Security Analyst Adam Bona has chastised the administration of the Ghana Police Service for failing to continually train, examine, and ensure that personnel do not renege on their responsibilities.

According to the security expert, the improper scrutiny of security trainees by the recruitment agencies is the cause of unethical behaviour of certain security personnel.

He was speaking on 3FM’s morning show, Sunrise, where he said incidents of police brutality among other unethical behaviour are as a result of improper scrutiny of police trainees by recruiting officers before they enter the field of practice.

“Over the years, about 200 and more police officers were sent home since they have dodgy certificates, degrees, ages and other details. Prior to that, some had already entered the field and were people who were found smoking marijuana in corners and had temperamental problems.”

Adam Bona’s comments comes on the back of an incident that transpired between a policeman, Corporal Fredrick Amanor, and a customer of Midland Savings and Loans Company, Patience Sarfo. The said police man is seen in a video brutalizing the customer.

The policeman was subsequently arrested and is expected to stand trial in court on Monday, July 23.

Managers of Midland Savings and Loan Company have also suspended some workers of its East Legon branch, where the incident occurred, and subsequently closed down the branch.

The incident, among several others that have occurred, has generated a lot of public outcry, with some people questioning the mode of recruitment and training of police personnel in the country.

According to Adam Bona, the police administration ought to put stringent measures in place to ensure that due diligence is done in recruiting and training its personnel.

“Even though there has been lot of improvements in the recruitment services as compared to over the years, if measures are not taken to straighten the recruitment processes, then these issues are going to occur every time and this is not good for mother Ghana,” he stated.

In his opinion, police officers are only supposed to deal with criminal issues, and that what happened at the offices of Midland Savings and Loans was purely a civil matter, hence, the policeman was not supposed to be there.

He further stated that police officers are supposed to refer to their codes of ethics per their training before taking any action.

Adam Bona suggested that temperaments of police recruits must be checked in the course of training.

According to him, police in the past were the best and did not dress fully armed to approach the citizens they are meant to serve

“It has become difficult for citizens to approach police officers because they have dressed as if they are going to wars, and this is not how it is supposed to be,” he observed.