Reports reaching DGN Online indicate that the Police Administration took the decision to convert the cash allowance for officers participating in the two weeks partial lockdown operation to food following the explosion in the number of officers.
According to a police source, the administration originally budgeted for 2800 officers of which the government released funding of Ghc 100 per day.
However, it was later realized that the number of officers on duty were grossly inadequate leading to the drafting of more police officers for the operation.
The brouhaha that has characterized the lockdown operation which is undermining its success stems from the fact that officers operating under Accra region were paid the first two days of Ghc 100 each but when the Police administration later realized that they were overwhelmed by the exercise and needed to draft more men, they had to convert the cash ration to meal to cover everybody since government was not releasing additional money.
“On the third day we realized that enforcement with our estimated number was impossible,” the source said.
According to our source, “Additional officers were drawn from all the offices to augment our strength. Also officers were not even getting food to buy thereby leaving their duty posts.”
“The Police Administration decided to feed officers still within the same budget”, a police source told DGN Online.
Currently 5,900 police officers have been deployed in Accra, Tema and Kasoa operations while 2500 officers are taking part in Kumasi exercise, bringing the figures to 8400 with the same budget.
The source insists that nobody’s money has been pocketed and that the food ordered for their meals are decent and rich.
Lunch City is catering for the officers in Accra, providing them three meals per day with two bottle water and drink.
Also today the Inspector General of Police (IGP) met all divisional commanders to give us daily report on our operations, says the police source.
All police officers on leave have been recalled in order to augment the enforcement of the lockdown order.
Even the top echelons of the police including Commissioners are part of the operations.
In an earlier explanation, the police administration said it decided to serve personnel meals to avoid the situation where officers deployed to ensure the public complied with the lockdown directives do not leave their posts in search of food.
They are not supposed to roam at this critical time, leaving their duty points to search for food and water, a release signed bySupt. Sheila Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, said.
“The Police Administration has monitored reports about ration provided for its officers deployed to enforce restrictions on movement and wishes to state that the administration has made a policy to serve food to its officers based on the following reasons: to avoid the situation where police officers would roam in this critical time, leaving their duty points to search for food, water or soft drink,” it stated.
It said some of the duty points are situated at places where officers cannot even find food or water to buy.
Source: dailyguidenetwork.com