Referendum for new regions will be smooth - Volta Regional Police
The Volta Regional Police Commander, DCOP Francis Doku, has assured that the referendum for the creation of new regions will come off smoothly.
He said this when the Minister for the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, paid a three-day working visit to the region.
The DCOP said intelligence reports indicated that there had been some stiff opposition to the creation of the region.
Flashpoints
He announced that the Electoral Commission (EC) had provided the regional command with 777 polling stations out of which 242 had been identified as flashpoints.
The command, he disclosed, intended to deploy five personnel at each flash point while the less volatile polling stations would be manned by one security officer.
He appealed for enough cash ration to be provided, while the region’s allocation of fuel was increased.
The referendum has been slated for December 27.
‘We can assure you that with the kind of preparation we’re making, this referendum will pass without any issue’.
The minister was in the region to acquire first-hand information about the challenges of the various security agencies.
Mr Dery, who was accompanied by the Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, visited the Volta regional police command, the Fire Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, Ho Central Prison and the regional NADMO office to interact with the officers.
Government’s efforts
The minister said the government was making efforts to make the security agencies the best in Africa and among the best 10 in the world.
He said the government was aware of their challenges and was working towards giving them the best working conditions that would increase their productivity.
‘We will give you the vehicles, and the logistics, address welfare issues by next year but you must also impress the government by making sure that the investment produce best results’, he said.
Most of the complaints of the officers had been the lack of logistics, offices, weapons and computers to do their job effectively.
The regional head of the Immigration Service, Mr Peter Claver Nantuo, Esq explained that in all the five sectors in the region, the service had inadequate offices to the extent that they were forced to perch with other agencies like Plant Quarantine (Leklebi), GRA-CD (Batume), with a single room office each for staff of over 30.
Physical Attacks
He said some indigenes around the Aflao sector and others, every now and then attacked immigration officers with the complaint that their daily livelihood, which is mainly smuggling, was being taken away from them.
The officers appealed to the minister to provide them with arms to fight crimes at the border.
Similar concerns were raised at the other agencies with NADMO and Fire Service also requesting more people to be recruited as they were understaffed.
The minister also visited the Batume, Akanu and Aflao borders.