THE Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr David Asante-Apeatu, has started moves aimed at making the Ghana Police Service the best in Africa and 10th in the world within three years.

According to the IGP, the Ghana Police Service has been affected by global changes and cannot remain static. Therefore,” the service under my leadership is pursuing a robust transformation aimed at actualising the vision of the service that is to be a world class Police Service capable of delivering planned, democratic, protective and peaceful services up to the standard of international best practice.”

He made this known during the opening ceremony of a four-day strategic communications workshop for police public affairs officers at the Police Headquarters in Accra yesterday.

“In doing this, it is our goal to position the Ghana Police Service as one of the best 10 Police Services in the world and the leading one in Africa by 2020.

“It is against this backdrop that my administration recognises the strategic role of the PAD as the department assigned to ensure that a better window of communication is opened to the public,” the IGP explained

According to him, building capacity of personnel of the PAD was one of the key deliverables of the transformation agenda and his administration recognises the strategic role of the PAD as the department assigned to ensure that a better window of communication is opened to the public.

Reminder

“I want to remind personnel of the PAD that the directorate serves as the interface between the Service and the general public. As a result, the personnel must strictly adhere to high standards of professionalism in all its endeavours. I expect the course participants to rejuvenate dull corridors of communications between the service and the public.”

The IGP said technology had brought a revolution in information dissemination and that there were more sources of information in today’s world than previously.

“This in itself has created the forum for misinformation today rather than before. This in itself has created the forum for misinformation, slandering and character assassination. Let me remind you of a favourite quote by Seth Gordon, that ‘the less people know, the more they yell.’

“Yes, this is true. The less people know the more they attack police officers and state property. The less people know, the more they perceive people in a bad light. The less people know, the more they perceive police officers as less educated group of people.”

Advice

In his advice to the personnel of PAD he said, “you must be very timeous in doing your job. If you have your information disseminated to the public, very little will be left for others to mislead the public. It is the expectation of the service that our communicators will be technologically up to date, professionally agile and socially conscious in performing their duties.

“It is the expectation of the administration that at the end of this four-day workshop, participants would come out with strategies and recommendations to rebrand the service to make it a service with true integrity. I also expect participants to come out with approaches to best practice to achieve the vision of the service,” he added.