The Ghana Police Service, as part of its transformation agenda has implemented a comprehensive reorganisation of the Cybercrime Unit (CU) at the CID Headquarters.
The unit has also been decentralised to all the 25 Police Regional commands across the country to bring its services closer to the public.
This strategic reorganisation has positioned the CU as an expert unit to support criminal investigation by delivering services such as cyber forensic analysis, digital devices forensic analysis, mobile and network forensic analysis and digital content forensic analysis instead of its initial focus on general criminal investigations such as building case dockets and direct handling of suspects.
As part of the first phase of the decentralisation process, the Service has undertaken specialised training of 151 personnel and deployed them to the 25 Police Regions across the country to complement criminal investigations within the regions.
The training encompassed a wide range of critical areas, including but not limited to Digital Wallet (mobile money) Fraud, Social Engineering, Insider Threats and Online Scam. Others were Bank Card Fraud, File System Forensics and Artifact Analysis as well as Network and Memory Forensics.
The decentralization of the CU aligns with the broader goals of modernising the Police Service and ensuring that it remains at the forefront of tackling emerging threats in the digital age.
Former Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency, Mr Daniel Kosi Ashiamah, has described COP George Alex Mensah’s attitude at the public hearing on leaked tape to oust the IGP as devlish.
According to Mr. Ashaimah, some unwaqrranted comments passed by the commissioner of police are all a ploy to destroy and render the police service to nothing.
But the former MP has profusely stated that he will fail in all his attempts.
“He has seen that he is going home, so he is doing all he can to destroy everything before he lives. He is like a witch. Before a witch in a family dies, he kills all the children in the house. That is what he is trying to do. Telling us that he heard Mahama and Dampare are close. He is a devil! But he will not succeed. We must tell him in the face,” the former MP expressed.
He added: “If you want to lobby to become an IGP, you must bring the record of your performance so that Ghanaians and Nana [President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo] will assess and give you the IGP position. Don’t go and tell somebody that Dampare is not doing his work so we should take you.”
Meanwhile, the member of parliament for Builsa South, is calling for the removal of COP Alex Mensah and Superintendent George Asare from their positions within the Ghana Police Service.
He asserts that both senior police officers have displayed misconduct and insubordination, rendering them unfit for their roles.
Dr. Apaak urged the Police Council to promptly suspend the two policemen in light of the ongoing investigation and revelations surrounding their behavior.
During separate testimonies before the committee, COP Mensah criticized IGP George Akuffo Dampare as the worst in Ghana’s history, citing low morale within the service due to mismanagement. Superintendent, on the other hand, questioned the IGP’s competence but stated he would discuss this matter privately. He accused the IGP of orchestrating the recording.
Dr. Apaak emphasized the significance of addressing the interests of the two officers in response to the ongoing developments.
A workshop for judges and magistrates on the new Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 (Act 1019) held on Friday, 16th June 2023, has revealed that the percentage of inmates in remand prisons in Ghana has reduced from 33% in 2017 to 9.8% in 2023.
The workshop was organised by the Judicial Training Institute, Perfector for Sentiments (POS) Foundation, and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), a non-governmental organisation.
The theme was: “the Narcotics Control Commission Act 2020 (Act 1019): effective implementation of the Act, and the role of judges and magistrates in handling people who use drugs”.
The workshop aimed to equip the judges and magistrates with the necessary knowledge of the changes brought by the Act, and the jurisdiction given to the trial Court by Act 1019.
Mr. Johnathan Osei Owusu, the Executive Director of the Perfector for Sentiments (POS) Foundation, implementers of the “Justice for All Programme” (JFAP), gave the information on the remand prison population.
He commended the judiciary, police, and prisons services, as well as all stakeholders, for their support of the programme and described it as a remarkable achievement that was partly due to the implementation of the JFAP.
Mr Owusu explained that the JFAP was a state-led intervention, launched in 2007 to decongest prisons, by setting up Mobile In-prison Special Courts, to adjudicate remand and pre-trial cases in prisons nationwide.
This initiative involved the collective efforts of the Judicial Service of Ghana, Office of the Attorney-General, Ghana Prisons and Police Service, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), and the POS Foundation, a civil society organisation that served as facilitators.
Mr Owusu said the judicial system in Ghana was doing better than that of other neighbouring countries like Nigeria whose remand prison population was 69 per cent, Liberia 48 per cent and Kenya 42 per cent.
Justice Patrick Bayeh, a Supervising High Court Judge in Sunyani said the workshop was important and timely, as judges and magistrates were only familiar with the old narcotic control law.
He praised the new Act 1019, saying it had introduced fairness into the judicial system in prosecuting cases related to narcotics and hoped participants would be well informed about the new law.
Justice Tanko Amadu, the Director of the Judicial Training Institute and a Justice of the Supreme Court, and Mr Yaw Akrasi-Sarpong, a former boss of the then Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) were present.
The participants were taken through topics such as Act 1019, the role of judges in its application in line with best practices and drug use and dependence as public health issues.
Other topics included ‘Ghana’s commitment to international and regional drug reform and how to effectively meet these commitments’, as well as ‘thinking outside the box’, ‘cannabis governance, the international and national perspectives.
The Narcotics Control Commission Act, 2020, Act 1019 was passed on 20th March 2020, and received Presidential assent on 11th May 2020.
It came after a long period of seeking more effective responses by law enforcement authorities.
After a boy was fatally stabbed in Northampton, a murder inquiry has been established.
The 16-year-old was discovered today in the town’s Kingsthorpe neighborhood.
At around 3.35 p.m., officers were summoned to Harborough Road, at the intersection with The Cock Hotel, in response to claims that a boy had been stabbed.
He passed away soon after despite the paramedics’ best attempts.
Four men aged 49, 21, 16 and 14, have been arrested in connection with the boy’s death and remain in police custody at this time.
A police cordon is expected to remain in place overnight and house-to-house enquiries are being carried out.
Senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector Simon Barnes, said: ‘This is an exceptionally sad and tragic incident in which a young boy with his whole life ahead of him has died and I want to reassure the public that we are absolutely determined to bring the people involved to justice.
‘Arrests were promptly made this evening, and enquiries are continuing to move at a fast pace however I would still appeal for any witnesses or anyone with information who has not yet come forward, to please do so.
‘Whilst we do believe that this was an isolated incident, high-visibility police patrols will be taking place in the Kingsthorpe area to reassure the local community.
‘I would encourage anyone with concerns in the area to approach one of our officers who will be happy to help.’
On Tuesday, 21st February 2023, President Akufo-Addo handed over 700 vehicles to the Ghana Police Service to assist their mandate in ensuring safety in the country.
He presented 100 pick-up vehicles, 600 motorbikes and 6 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) vehicles, in addition to commissioning the National Police Headquarters facelift project.
Police Pick-up vehicles
The president noted that all regions across the country are soon going to benefit from the services of this specialised unit.
“These Regional Formed Police Unit (FPUs) will be spread across 140 bases in various communities. Without any doubt, their presence will enhance greatly security, law and order in the country,” he added.
Armoured Personnel Carrier
Until recently, the FPU was only stationed in Accra, but through support from government, the Unit was extended to Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
Currently, government is working on providing the remaining regions an FPU.
The two suspects arrested for the murder of aspiring trainee nurse, Georgina Asor Botwe, at Mankessimin the Central Region have confessed to their crimes, the Police Service has revealed.
The accused currently in police custody are Tufuhene of Ekumfi Akwaakrom, Christopher Ekow Clark Quansah, and self-styled pastor, Michael Darko.
In a statement on Thursday, September 22, 2022, the Police revealed that the suspects admitted to “murdering the victim for money rituals.”
Following this revelation, they were arraigned before the District Court II in Cape Coast on Thursday, and have been remanded to reappear before the Court on 4th October 2022.
The alleged boyfriend of the deceased’s senior sister, Michael Darko, was invited for interrogation as it was found out that he was the last person to have interacted with Georgina.
Later, the Tufuhene of Ekumfi Akwaakrom was apprehended for the role he played in the murder ofaspiring trainee nurse.
According to the Police, the interrogation also led officers to the location where the 25-year-old had been buried.
The Police statement did not make mention of the exact spot they retrieved the remains of the lady.
Meanwhile, the deceased’s remains have since been exhumed and deposited at Cape Coast Teaching Hospital morgue for preservation and autopsy.
The Inspector-General of Police, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare, has stated that, relativesof police officers who die in the line of duty would henceforth be recruited into the service if they meet the necessary qualifications to compensate for the loss.
According to the IGP, the initiative is part of a broad range of measures being taken by the leadership of the Police Service to encourage officers to give off their best.
“When a police officer dies on duty, we have put new measures in place to ensure that a relative of the deceased officer who is qualified is recruited into the service as part of efforts to urge our officers to do their best in protecting the public,†the IGP said while delivering a public lecture at theKwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) on Thursday.
The IGP who spoke on the theme “The changing face of policing in Ghana: expectations and the role of the university community†said his vision is to make the Police the most efficient institution in the country despite the challenges they are confronted with.
“We want a police service of the people, by the people, and for the people. We want to make the service the best institution in the country and a reference point in the world.â€
Dr. Dampare also urged the public to criticise the Police but do so constructively since destructive criticisms could destroy the morale of the officers.
“Criticise us but please do so constructively so that the men and women of the service are not demoralised.â€
The Inspector General of Police, COP Dr George Akuffo Dampare, IGP, has penned down a 5-page response to a report released by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and its partners.
The report by GSS and its associates placed the Ghana Police Serviceat the top of the institutions that take the most bribes.
But Dr Dampare reacting to the survey stated that the report doesn’t reflect the current state of the Service.
“We want to place on record that we are concerned about this since the continuous empirically and scientifically unsubstantiated labelling of the police as the most corrupt institution in the country only goes to feed this perception and damage the reputation of the Police Service as well as weaken the morale of its personnel.
“As we have all now come to accept, perception tends to be more powerful than reality, and therefore we have no choice than to share our position on this matter,†Dr Dampare said.
Also, the IGP raised 14 concerns from the report, seeking answers from the researchers.
Find below the 14 reasons, as stated in the police statement of Wednesday, July 27, 2022:
– It has been observed that the research did not cover some other public institutions such as the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Audit Service, Parliamentary Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Gaming Commission, Public Media houses, National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC), the Attorney-General’s (AG’s) Department, the Registrar General’s Department among others and these are all institutions, we believe, that the public deal with regularly.
– More importantly, a further scrutiny of the report shows that your two institutions (CHA] and Ghana Statistical Service) were also not part of the research and we are wondering why you do not think they are also candidates for corruption investigation, considering that they also provide critical services to the public.
– We also noticed that some institutions such as the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) were disaggregated into components with one part touching on Customs officers and another part on tax officers. Another example is the Ghana Health Service where you had doctors, nurses and midwives in one group and other health workers in the public hospitals constituting the other group. Even some other institutions such as public utility services, which include the Ghana Water Company, Electricity Company of Ghana and others were aggregated as one. One wonders why the lack of consistency in your approach.
– In addition, in some instances you combined different institutions as one entity; for example, prosecutors are not part of the judicial service but you put them together as one. Also, teachers and lecturers, though both operate in the education sector, do not belong to the same institution but were lumped together. We consider this to be a clear case of combining mangoes and oranges to corrupt the flavour of each.
– For some other institutions, only sections were covered; for example, the Judicial Service is not made up of only judges. Lecturers, professors and teachers are not the full complement of the institutions they represent. What about the other officials of these institutions? Do their actions not affect service delivery of their institutions? This is evident that you compared the whole of some institutions to the parts of some others. In specific terms, you compared the whole of the Police Service with sections of the Judicial Service, sections of the GRA and others.
– We Know that there are three branches (arms) of government, namely the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary. From our understanding, most of the institutions covered in your research are under the Executive branch and yet, you also introduced another institution named the Executive Branch of Government without offering any explanation as to what it constitutes. Your comment on this will be helpful.
– We have also read that you used some multiple levels of quality assurance to eliminate errors in your research, but looking at the report, we believe we have good reason to be skeptical about this quality assurance mechanism. For example, we wonder whether you made any attempts to verify and authenticate from any of the affected institutions the credibility of the information given interviewees since we cannot feel that in the research.
– From your report, the corruption prevalence rate is determined by the number of contacts who paid bribes or were asked to pay bribes bu refused as a percentage of the total number of contacts. We realized that a contact is defined as at least a single experience with the institution. This suggests that there could be single or multiple contacts. Did you treat multiple contacts and single contacts in the same way, knowing that this would affect the denominator of the corruption prevalence rate formula and therefore the final percentage for each institution and ultimately, the ranking? For example, if there are two people and one of them has had only one contact with institution A, and the other had 20 contacts with institution B. If we treat the 20 contacts as one contact, then in institution A, there will be one contact and in institution B, there will also be one contact. If in institution A, the contact resulted in a bribe, then the prevalence rate will be 100 percent (1/1×100=100%) and if in institution B, the 20 contacts are treated as one, then the prevalence rate will be 100% (1/1×100=100%). However, if we treat the 20 contacts separately, we will have a prevalence rate of 5% (1/20×100=5%) for institution B. This means that the prevalence for institution B will be 20 times less than institution A. We would like to know which approach you used.
– Closely related to point (xili) above is the issue of how often bribes are paid by a single contact to a public official. In your research, it was analysed in isolation and the average number of times a contact paid bribe during the research period was reported. We want to know how this was factored in the computation of the overall prevalence rate which informed the contact-based ranking.
– From your research, the definition of corruption is about the aggregate of those who paid bribes and those who were asked to pay but refused. This aggregate was used to compute the corruption prevalence rat. We are interested in knowing the portion of those who paid bribes as against those who were asked but refused to pay and whether those who refused to pay were disadvantaged in the service they required. This will enable us assess our mechanisms aimed at educating and empowering the public to resist attempts by any officer to engage in any corrupt practices.
– As you are aware, one of the major consequences of corruption is its ability to take away resources meant for socio-economic development for the benefit of all. Therefore, the value of the amount lost to corruption will play a key role in determining the prevalence of corruption and which institutions are causing the most harm when it comes to the size of bribes paid. When you did the ranking using the value-based (size of bribes paid) method, we realised that the Police Service was one of the least corrupt institutions and came nowhere near the top as per figure 21 of page 32 of your report. This should be projected in the same way that the contact-based ranking is being projected. You also indicated that about Five Billion Ghana Cedis was lost to corruption during the period of your research and we would like to know how much of this was police related.
– Using your contacts-based and value-based ranking methods for your analysis, we would like a regional, monthly and departmental breakdown of your findings for the Police Service to enable us pinpoint where the issues are and tackle them.
– We also did not see any specific recommendations in the report and we find it surprising that a major research like this did not offer any recommendations and solutions.
– There is also the real risk that your research may have been affected by a historically pervasive stereotyping of the Police Service. The Service has almost now become the default institution of choice for such research and has therefore encouraged a deep-seated public stereotype over the years. This stereotype may easily influence respondent choices and it is therefore fair to expect that you factor it in assessing the validity of your findings.
The Ghana Police Service has indicated that it would be unable to provide security to members of FixGhanaNow movement should they protest on June 4.
This comes after the group on Sunday, May 29, served notice to the Police of their intention to embark on a demonstration on the said date in question.
According to the Police, in the said notice, group comprising broadcaster Blessed Godsbrain Smart, popularly known as ‘Captain Smart’, lead convenor for FixTheCountry movement, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, Okatakyie Afrifa and Benjamin Darko, sought to do the following:
Embark on a three-day demonstration starting 4th June, 2022.
Contract a private security company to provide protection for the demonstrators.
Contract a private security personnel to be armed with weapons
Picket at the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and the Ghana Police Headquarters
Demand to speak directly to the nation on GTV and layout their grievances
In a press statement dated June 1, the Police explained that the nature and character of the intended demonstration contravenes the Public Order Act, 1994 (Act 49).
The Service therefore has suggested to the Movement that it rescheduled the date for its protest while working with the Police to organise a “lawful, peaceful and successful demonstration.â€
“We wish to assure the public that in the interest of public safety and security, the Police are putting in place all necessary measures to ensure that unauthorised persons do not march the streets with weapons,” the statement added.
What does PUBLIC ORDER ACT, 1994 ACT 491 say:
Section 4 notes that “Where a police officer notified of a special event under subsection (1) has reasonable grounds to believe that the special event if held may lead to violence or endanger public defence, public order, public safety, public health or the running of essential services or violate the rights and freedoms of any other persons, the police officer may request the organiser to postpone the special event to any other date or to relocate the special event.â€
Per Section 5, an organiser requested to postpone or relocate the holding of a special event shall “within forty-eight hours of the request, notify the police officer in writing of the willingness to comply.â€
Section 6 adds that Where the organiser refuses to comply with the request or fails to notify the police officer, “the police officer may apply to a Justice or the chairman of a Regional Tribunal for an order to prohibit the holding of the special event on the proposed date or at the proposed location.
The Ghana Bar Association (GBA) has announced its commitment to finding justice for the killing of Lawyer Richard Badombie.
In a press release dated May 30, the association pledged to offer a GH¢20,000 bounty to any individual who can provide credible information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the killers.
“The GBA stands ready and prepared to give a reward of Twenty Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH¢20,000.00) to anyone who volunteers credible and legitimate information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime.â€
The deceased, Richard Badombie, was attacked and killed by suspected robbers at the Bole-Bamboi highway on May 28.
Expressing fears over the upsurge in armed robbery and other violent crimes, GBA has implored security agencies to carry out swift and thorough investigations of the incident in order to identify the perpetrators of this heinous to prevent other future occurrences.
The GBA, commiserating with the family and colleagues of Richard Badombie, assured that the association will do everything to bring these perpetrators to book.
“The GBA would like to assure its entire membership that the Association will do everything within its power to ensure the arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators of this abominable crime,†it added.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Police Service has dismissed claims by GBA that there is an increase in armed robberies and violent attacks in the country.
The Service says the assertions are untrue because the security in the country is under control and remains committed to its crime-fighting efforts.
“We fight every day and treat every crime with the same urgency and same professional attitude, and we regret the loss of every life. ”
So far, the Police in the Savannah Region have arrested three suspects said to be involved in the highway robbery and murder.
The Police have also mounted a search for the other suspects who are still on the run.
Background
Suspected armed robbers on Saturday attacked the vehicle of Lawyer Badomie who was travelling to Jirapa in the Upper West Region with some relatives.
The armed men reportedly emerged from the near-by bush and signaled the vehicle in which the lawyer and his relatives were travelling to stop.
One of the suspects immediately shot dead the driver of the vehicle, Richard Badombie, who is a lawyer with Lartey, Badombie & Co. Associates in Accra.
