The inadequacy of police vehicles is affecting effective police operations in the Odumase Police Command in the Eastern Region, the police commander for the district has disclosed in an interview with GhanaWeb.
Supt. Doris Akua Grant is appealing to various stakeholders to help provide the police in the area with a photocopier machine and a vehicle to enable personnel to discharge their duties efficiently.
She explained that lack of transport for the police was hindering their work in the jurisdiction, adding that the police in the area, therefore, need a means of transport to patrol the town to maintain law and order to enable the people to go about their normal duties.
The only vehicle available to the Command is a Mahindra 4X4 single cabin pick-up truck donated to the police in 2019 by the former energy minister, Mr. Boakye Agyarko.
“We have only one vehicle and we need to do day and night patrols and that same vehicle does administrative work and the jurisdiction is also big and so there is a challenge…so we need an additional one so that this one too can rest a bit else it will break down,” she emphasised.
Describing how the inadequacy of patrol vehicles affects the operations of the police, Supt. Akua Grant said, “It affects us because when it breaks down, we wouldn’t have any other to do other things and if for instance, the vehicle has to take a convicted person to prison, maybe at Koforidua, that means the whole day, we wouldn’t have any other vehicle to do any other thing.”
The Odumase Police Command also undertook various activities during the 2021 year in review with the Commander identifying its sensitisation drive targeted at the girl child, both in basic schools and the communities standing out.
The Command led by Supt. Grant visited several basic schools, churches, and other places within the community to raise awareness amongst young girls and parents on sexual abuse and domestic issues.
“For the year in review, we have done a lot, our major one was the sensitisation programme that we had with the children and the community. We have visited over fifteen schools and we intend to continue that,” she revealed.
She added: “We were talking basically on domestic violence issues, sexual offences because we realized that some of the children are being sexually assaulted and so we needed them to understand what it meant and then how they have to report [it],” she said adding that its long term aim was demystifying the police public relations.
For men guilty of defiling under-aged young girls and raping young women, she had a caution for them: “Those guys who are in the community and defiling the children, or raping young girls, it is not normal. They shouldn’t take it as a normal thing. When it is reported, we’re going to apply the law.”
The exercise, she explained, also targeted parents on responsible parenting.
According to the police commander, the exercise would continue in 2022 with its radar turning to the private and senior high schools within the Odumase District.
She had similar caution for riders of unregistered motorbikes to ensure that the right thing is done.
With chieftaincy and differences between the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and its customers in the Krobo area dominating discussions with their attendant security threats, the Commander admitted that the incidents posed security threats to the district.
As part of measures being considered to ensure that these issues do not pose a security threat to the district in the new year, police reinforcements from other jurisdictions have been placed on standby in situations of emergency.
Odumase Police Commander, Supt. Doris Akua Grant