 |
| Ag. IGP David Asante-Apeatu |
A new IGP has been announced and as predicted in my last article, the Director General of ICT COP David Asante Apeatu was the one chosen.
Mr Apeatu no doubt has been in the service for more than two decades and has served in some strategic important positions in the service which includes the revered, Director of the Criminal Investigations Department.
I argued in my last article that almost all IGPs who have been appointed were between the ages of 55 to 60 years, that is, they’re almost always close to their retirement ages.
My investigations indicates that Mr Apeatu falls in this category and is due for official retirement this year although government may extend his stay beyond his retirement for about two years or less.
The appointment of IGPs within this category affects the development of the service. Not because the appointees are incompetent but because they do not have the time to enforce radical change.
From the records, since 1990, only two former IGPs have served for a period of four years or more – J.Y.A Kwofie served from 1990 to 1996 and P.T. Nanfuri served from 1996 to 2001.
So you will notice that not much has changed within the police service. So what all IGPs have done is to ensure the regular supply of weapons and ammunition and as well add more units to the police service but the service delivery has not changed much.
Take IGP Kudalor, under two years he created the ‘anti-Land unit’ and IGP Mohammed Alhassan created the ‘the police visibility’ department. Nothing substantial changed under their reign, not because they are incompetent IGPs but they just don’t have enough time to undertake any great plans and programmes to enhance the service. This impedes progress and transformation of a service that needs a grand makeover.
And the theory of ‘new King, new rules’ remains manifest in the service.
Compare the service to the Ghana Armed Forces where most Chiefs of Defence Staff have lasted for at least four years under the fourth republic.
The Police Service Regulations, C.I 76 provides for the appointment for a deputy IGP but the position has been lying vacant over the years.
Section 11 of the C.I states that the membership of the Police Management Board consists of ‘the Inspector General of Police, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, schedule officers at the National Headquarters and any other senior Police officer who may be co-opted from time to time and the Chief Staff Officer who is the secretary’.
In fact in section 13 sub section one of the C.I., it states that ‘meetings of the management board shall be chaired by the IGP and in the absence of the IGP by the deputy inspector General and in the absence of the deputy inspector General by the most senior Commissioner of Police present’.
Sub sections three and four of that same section also states that ‘ the IGP shall be assisted by the deputy IGP. The deputy IGP shall supervise, control, monitor and provide the day to day management of all schedules and command and shall report to the IGP’.
So the past, two IGPs and the Police Council violated the C.I. by failing to appoint a substantive deputy IGP. Former IGPs Mohammed Alhassan and Mills Robertson have at some periods served as deputy IGP.
That position removes any vacuum in the leadership of the service should an IGP retire.
I don’t expect much from the new IGP really. He may also not have enough time to embark on a transformation agenda for the service but if you are a police officer you should be expecting a transfer notice because one of the major actions of every IGP is to reshuffle the Police Management Board and embark on a massive transfer of personnel.
For the future though, a much younger IGP, under the age of 55 is required to carry out a thorough transformation of the service.
source: citifmonline.com