Accra, Oct. 11, GNA - The Interior Minister Paapa Owusu-Ankomah has called on the French Government to help to equip and upgrade the Ghana Police Service's Criminal Investigation Department's Forensic Laboratory to make it a centre of excellence to serve the West Africa Sub-Region. This would place the Service in a sophisticated stance to deal with crime and its emerging trends, he told, Mr Joel Sere, the visiting Divisional Commissioner in-charge of French International Co-operation Projects in Africa at his office in Accra.

Mr Sere is in the country to assess the impact of France's training programmes for the Service. The Ghana project is part of 25 others in Africa, of which Ghana is the largest beneficiary. The project, which is in three modules include training and equipping the Criminal Investigation Department; Public Order Management and the French Language Course for Police Officers.

The first two modules have been carried out, with the training of 21 CIDs in violent crime management and 110 Police personnel trained at the Winneba Police School for the Special Unit of the Service. Paapa Owusu-Ankomah told the French Envoy that Ghana was benefiting immensely from the project and acknowledged the French government's support for the service.

He said Ghana would tap into the expertise of the capacity and high sophistication of the French Police. The Minister said the Police Service would like to have the Special Unit, which was currently based in Accra, in all the 10 regions of the country.

He said it was not the desire of the Government to engage the Military in police duties, but that they are only called in when the Police were stretched to its capacity in dealing with internal security problems.

Mr Sere told the Minister that the assessment the programme was normal for all French co-operations worldwide. He expressed the hope that Ghana would take advantage of the co-operation to improve the Police Service.