Some Ghanaians have hailed the Ghana Police Service for the introduction of an initiative to help curb bribery and corruption among its personnel.
The police service has launched a campaign aimed at a weeding out personnel extorting money from drivers. The service has announced a series of hotlines and WhatsApp contacts to which complaints can be made.
The WhatsApp number specifically invites members of the public to send photos or videos of police personnel taking bribes, extorting money or engaging in any unprofessional conduct.
Speaking to Melody Hini-Amoako of Mynewsafric.com on the streets of Accra, many have expressed their joy over the new initiative and the overall performance of the police as at now.
However, others are also of the view that this initiative might not help favor citizens living in the rural part of the country since most of them do not have access to smart phones and internet connectivity.
William, one of the people we spoke to said, “This initiative is a very good move on the part of the police administration and I think it will go a long way to cater or check the unethical activities of some police officers. This initiative will in turn cause them to be strict on the drivers in areas of they having valid licenses, obeying traffic rules, driving road-worthy cars, transportation of smuggled or illegal goods among others. For these two major reasons, I second the initiative and deem it a good move. With regards to people in the rural areas, this initiative wouldn’t be of any good impact as at now due to the low level of technology (smart phones) being used there but as time goes on, with proper communication and public education, they would see the benefit later”.
‘’I believe this is a very great initiatives which will not only create discipline and orderliness among the police to put them on their toes and focus on their duty as security guards and perform their duties well for the safety of the country Ghana but will also create discipline and order on our roads as well. For instance, that driver who used to dodge the traffic and give the police a small amount of money and go scot-free is now aware that, I will be arrested if I commit that act and so will wait until the light turns green and cars are to move. You and I cannot count the number of times reckless driving, most especially dodging of traffic, drivers without license overloading and speeding has caused road accidents and claimed the lives of countless innocent ones and great leaders, so what just happened? Life has been saved, right? Due to this initiative where a driver knows I must discipline myself on the road. I just pray and hope it becomes effective and doesn’t just turn out to be a nine-day wonder’’, a lady named Emefa said.
Many allegations of extortion, bribing to downright begging have been made against personnel for decades and all attempts by police administration to curb the unprofessional conduct has not yielded much progress, however the introduction of this initiative we believe will yield a positive result.
I don’t think this is a good initiative by the police because the general public can be misled and anyone at all can send false information about police personnel to the hotline. I believe the police can come up with another initiative to eradicate such acts by their personnel, citizen Michael shared his view.
