Baah Wiredu, IGP Under Fire

Tension clouds are speedily gathering at the Police Headquarters and at some of the regional and divisional offices of the service as personnel are mounting on the top hierarchy pressure that is gradually building up and spreading across the entire country, The Independent can authoritatively reveal.

Unimpeachable sources close to the police high command have hinted of a possible uprising by police personnel spearheaded by some officers as the last stage of a long process of an attempt to mount pressure on the current Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, to resign his position for what they term as insensitivity on his part.

Speaking to the Independent, the aggrieved police personnel have also called on government to remove the IGP from office should he refuse to do so voluntarily since he would not enjoy their support if he should continue to stay in office.

The aggrieved police personnel have further come strongly against the affable Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Kwadwo Baah Wiredu. They are demanding from him an explanation on the ministry’s decision earlier this year to exclude the security agencies including the Ghana Police Service from enjoying the 20% salary increase announced by President John Agyekum Kufuor in his May Day address.

“We are at a loss to how the ministry came to the decision that police personnel would not enjoy the salary increase from January as announced by the President, but rather from April 1, 2006,” an angry Police Chief Superintendent fumed. “We demand an explanation from the minister on why security personnel were excluded…the circumstances that led to our exclusion, since we feel we are all workers of the republic,” a group of policemen who had gathered at the Police Service’s cafeteria told this paper last week.

“Are we not part of the public service,” demanded one police officer boiling with rage. “Why is it that the decision was reversed against us…are we second rate workers in Ghana?”

Calling for the resignation of the IGP the angry police officers cited instances where their boss, the IGP acted against the interest of the rank and file of the service and indicated that they could not continue to work with a Chief Executive who does not seek the interest of his subordinates but rather work against it.They questioned why Mr. Acheampong as the IGP should be apathetic to their plight only for they themselves to rise up and agitate before state decisions are changed in their favour while he remains their leader.

In a frank discussion with the Independent recently the aggrieved officers called on the IGP to consider resigning his position honourably to avoid a possible showdown, which they say could take the form of ‘positive defiance,’ non-co-operation, lackadaisical attitude to and apathy towards work.

“That, we believe, will cripple activities at the Headquarters, the regional and divisional offices where police administration is carried out. Maybe when that happens then government will see clearly how unpopular the IGP is,” some of them affirmed. Among other charges that have strengthened the resolve of the aggrieved police personnel to call for the head of the IGP is his unpopular acceptance of what they termed “a negative directive over salary review announced by President John Agyekum Kufuor on May 1, 2006.”

President Kufuor in his May Day address this year announced a 20% salary review across board for the entire public service that was billed to take retrospective effect from January 2006; and the Ghana Police Service was included.