War on corruption in police, axe falls on MTTU
The Police Administration has descended on corrupt police officers, saying that their actions are dragging the name of the service into disrepute.
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The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Mohammed Alhassan, through his director of Motor Traffic and Transport Department, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr Angwubutoge Awuni, warned police officers of severe sanctions should they be implicated in any acts of corruption.
Sharing his thoughts with the Daily Graphic after a tour of the Brong Ahafo, Upper West and Upper East regions, he said the IGP had decided that all MTTU personnel in Sunyani should be transfered for persistent reports that they had been involved in acts of corruption.
According to Mr Awuni, the first casualty of the IGP’s order, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Paul Wesley Baah, the Brong Ahafo Regional MTTU Commander, had been transferred to Agona Nyarkrom to head the MTTU there.
He indicated that others who had been penciled in for transfer must hold themselves in readiness for the exercise because vehicles were being arranged to send them to their new stations.
The move by the police to clean their ranks of corrupt elements is seen by observers as an apparent reaction to the survey of 2,000 people in Ghana last week that suggested that the police and political parties were the most corrupt institutions in the country.
The survey, conducted by Transparency International for its Global Corruption Barometer for 2013, suggested that in Ghana, 54 per cent of the 2,000 respondents reported that corruption had increased in the past two years, while 20 per cent reported that corruption had decreased.
A statement issued in Accra by the Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), the local chapter of Transparency International, on the 2013 corruption barometer report said: “More than one person in two, thinks corruption has worsened in the last two years although survey participants also firmly believe that they can make a difference in the fight against corruption and have the will to take action against graft.”
Mr Awuni explained that all officers who had been stationed in a region for 10 years would be transfered, while those who had served for five years in a district would be reshuffled to other districts.
He also asked other security agencies to join the police in cleaning the system of all corrupt elements.
Mr Awuni, however, explained that the exercise to instill honesty and transparency in the police would not succeed if motorists and other members of society who offered bribes to police personnel did not desist from their acts.
He said he had told police personnel in clear terms that any policeman or woman who arrested motorists and other members of the public for offering bribe to the police would be honoured.
Mr Awuni said the exercise to rid the police of corruption would not be limited to MTTU personnel alone but also highway patrol teams, police personnel at various barriers and CID personnel.
With particular reference to allegations against personnel of the MTTU in the Brong Ahafo Region, he stated that there had always been allegations of corruption against MTTU personnel along the Techiman-Buipe road and investigations conducted by the Police Administration confirmed those allegations.
According to him, those found culpable of corruption were the Brong Ahafo Regional MTTU officers in Sunyani, and that had resulted in the IGP directing that the allegations be investigated.
“Our investigations confirmed the allegations and I have directed the immediate transfer of all the Brong Ahafo Regional MTTU officers,” a charged Mr Awuni said.
For him, the MTTU was taking the lead in the campaign against corruption to motivate the other security agencies to join, stressing that “this fight calls for a holistic involvement”.
He reiterated that allegations of harassment and public complaints came at a time the Sunyani MTTU had taken charge of the Techiman-Buipe route.
He served notice to Wa MTTU officers to “watch out” as they were the next group likely to be hit with transfers.
ACP Awuni called on concerned Ghanaians to support the President to eliminate the canker of corruption, which was denying many Ghanaians employment opportunities and causing the country huge sums of money.
“We all owe it a duty to assist the President to weed out corruption,” he added, as he took on journalists, accusing them of complicity in the whole affair.
He expressed concern over the manner in which corruption had creeped into the media profession to the extent of some journalists requesting bribes to “drop stories”.
Asked where the rest of the MTTU personnel in Sunyani would be sent to, ACP Awuni indicated that “each of them will be sent to his or her village so that they will learn to behave among their own people”.
ACP Awuni told the Daily Graphic that his visit revealed the misuse of tricycles in the Upper East Region and he had directed the police to enforce the ban on the use of tricycles in conveying passengers.
He explained that tricycles were meant to be used to convey goods but their owners were using them to convey passengers, adding, “I have directed the police to arrest drivers of all such tricycles and send them to the district assemblies to be registered, so that they could generate revenue for the state.”
He said all over Bolgatanga, the police had told the people that he, as an indigene of the area, was directing the arrest of tricycle owners, saying that the exercise was necessary to rid the system of wrongful acts.
By Sebastian Syme/Daily Graphic/Ghana
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