New IGP`s challenge to officers, men

Get on, or be booted out

… Stresses on need for `Service with Integrity`

Posted: The Chronicle Wednesday, May 20, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

In his quest to restore what he admits to be the dented image of the Service, the new Inspector General Police (IGP), Paul Tawiah Quaye, has sent a word of advice to the officers and men of the Ghana Police Service (GPS), to live up to expectations.
According to him, any individual or group of persons in the service who act contrary to expectations would be made to face the full consequences of his or her actions and inaction, since the Police Service was no more going to compromise on its integrity.
He made these comments at his maiden address at the Police Headquarters in Accra, to outline his vision and objectives to the media.
Mr. Quaye therefore asked his officers and men to ensure a high degree of discipline and accountability within the service, indicating his commitment and preparedness to enforce, what he described as a rigorous equitable discipline in his administration.
“Officers and men, who for whatever reasons may run crisscross to the ethics of the police profession, will be dealt with drastically, without favour,” he emphasised.
He further advised the officers and men of the service, to operate within the parameters of democratic principles of policing, devoid of acts which tend to undermine the tenets which govern the protection of the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the citizenry, as enshrined in Chapter 5 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.
That notwithstanding, the IGP was optimistic the officers and men of the Ghana Police Service would abide by the rules and regulations governing the profession, in order not to fall prey to the law.
The police administration has also set specific goals and targets for all police stations, districts, units, divisions, and regions, against which performance would be measured periodically. Consequently, the aggregate of results will be analysed in the context of the overall national objectives of the country.
This way, the IGP believes, “negative variances reflecting non-performance or under-performance can be immediately identified, evaluated and rectified,” with the main control mechanism being the effective monitoring of performance at all levels.
Mr. Quaye envisions seeing a world-class police service that uses best professional practices and strategies to combat crime, including apprehension and prosecution of criminals in Ghana, with the belief that this would enhance the peace and security of the various communities in the country.
Based on this vision, the Inspector General of Police says it is his principal objective to implement systematically, short to medium term strategic national policing plans, aimed at significantly improving the maintenance of law and order, and the protection of life and property. In order to achieve this objective, the police administration has resolved to embark on a programme of undertaking a major internal re-structuring and capacity-building in the service, with a review to effectively and efficiently utilising the limited human and logistic resources of the service.
It has also expressed willingness to develop a professionally competent workforce, through what they call systematic core and related training and development, to establish a high delivery.
In this light, the IGP said there would be regular in-service training programmes for the officers and men of the service, with a view of sharpening their professional skills and keeping them abreast with contemporary developments in policing, with particular focus on the Ghanaian society.
Emphasis in these courses are expected to be put on integrity, discipline, leadership and management skills, fairness in dealing with the public, and the retention of staff in core operational roles.

The Oxford Lecture

JJ EXPLODES IN LONDON

…Accuses Kufuor’s gov’t of profligate spending

Posted:The Chronicle Wednesday, May 20, 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

It has virtually become impossible for former President Rawlings to mount any political platform without launching vitriolic attacks on his political opponents, especially members of the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, led by former President John Agyekum Kufuor. When he recently got the opportunity to address a forum at the prestigious Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Mr. Rawlings accused the Kufuor administration of abusing the country’s scanty resources.
In his opinion, “never before in our country’s history has there been such blatant dissipation of national resources” as witnessed under President Kufuor and his NPP regime. He accused the NPP of having left a huge debt to the tune of GH¢ 47 billion on the government and people of Ghana, when the country’s “combined debt from Independence was GH¢ 44 billion”, the former President said.
To him, the irony of the situation was that “there is absolutely no significant infrastructural development to show for it!”. Mr. Rawlings was speaking on the issue of ‘Security and Democracy in Africa’.
Mr. Rawlings at his recent address at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, also did not spare the immediate past government when he was reported to have said “contrary to the assertion that their (NPP) tradition was truly democratic, the NPP government was an excellent example of an undemocratic regime”. To buttress his point, Mr. Rawlings stressed that under the NPP regime “once you belonged to the party you did no wrong. Every effort was made to obliterate the P/NDC legacy and the institutions of government were so politicized that even when they took decisions against government officials, such decisions were disregarded with impunity.”
Rawlings told his Oxford audience that Ghana under NPP sunk into a democracy of nepotism, non-accountability, power to the rich and a complete disregard for the feelings of the electorate. He believed that these and other reasons led to the NPP losing power in the 2008 general elections.
He described as very dangerous the allegations of abuse of the structures of the Security Services, the hounding and persecution of some security personnel, refusal to follow laid down promotion procedures and a complete politicisation of the military under the erstwhile administration.
“The NPP could not co-exist with Institutions which had integrity. The Security Services were not spared and the Judiciary also took a serious beating as well”, he stressed.
According to the ex-President, some of his colleagues were also aware of the deepening crises in the barracks. Mr Rawlings recounted that a ban was placed on respectable and senior security officers from visiting security and military installations.
Mr. Rawlings said despite all these efforts to muffle people’s rights, Ghanaians did not hesitate to vote out the ruling party when it mattered most, despite the clear doctoring of figures that took place in a desperate bid to cling on to power.
“The NPP took us to the abyss as far as democracy was concerned, and such methods do not entrench our democracy. It allows for chaos, lack of confidence in the electoral process and political apathy”, he emphasized.
In spite of this, the former President said Ghana has managed to be stable because of the culture of tolerance that had been created between 1981 and 2000. According to him, these achievements have not come as a matter of the pressures imposed by the West, but “a desire by the people to prove that peoples’ power is most sacrosanct.”
For this reason, he noted that “democracy is democracy so long as it is propped up by freedom and justice, probity and accountability”, stressing that “our problem is how to deal with the Western double standards,” he stated.

The Akosombo declaration

Journalists commit themselves
… To help achieve MDGs
Posted:The Chronicle Tuesday, May 19, 2009


By Charles Takyi Boadu
With just six years to go, a team of Ghanaian media practitioners, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and the academia, have committed themselves to helping the country towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In all, the thirty-six participants have resolved to intensify and expand the coverage of programmes and activities towards the attainment of these goals by the year 2015.

This was after three days of intensive deliberations at a workshop organised by the Ministry of Information, with support from the United Nations Development Planning (UNDP), at Akosombo over the weekend.

The theme for the programme was ‘The state and the media as development partners in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).’

In recognition of the political polarisation in the country, the group pledged to enhance professional media practice as a means of contributing to national stability and peace, a critical consideration for the attainment of the MDGs, which include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal basic education, promote gender equality, and women empowerment.

The rest are reducing child or infant mortality, improve maternal mortality, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and to develop a global partnership for development.

In a seven-point communiqué, the group recommended for government consideration, the need for the establishment of a multi-sectoral team, comprising representatives of the Ministry of Information, UNDP, National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP), media, political parties and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) by the end of June 2009.

The team would be tasked with a responsibility of submitting progress reports on Ghana’s efforts at attaining the MDGs, to the Ministry of Information by the end of September 2009.

It was further recommended, for the consideration of government and other stakeholders, the formulation of a national development agenda, which recognises the attainment of the MDGs as binding, regardless of which government is in power.

“We further recommend the setting up of a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the performance and progress made or achieved in attaining the MDGs,” the communiqué said.

In order to ensure community participation and ownership towards the attainment of the goals set, it was further recommended that stakeholder meetings should be organised at district, regional and national levels, to create awareness and commitment in attaining the MDGs.