Director General in charge of Operations of the Ghana Police Service, Chief Superintendent Benjamin Agordzo says allowing presidential candidates to choose their own police guards will not amount to tagging the police. He maintains that the objectives to ensure the parties are comfortable with the choices made.

Speaking to 3FM News on the sidelines of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ National Stakeholders Forum on Election 2016, Chief Superintendent Benjamin Agordzo said the arrangement is not a new one but has been in place since 2008.

He said “If they think that they can trust the professionalism of the police to give them any police officers then we will do that. This is not to compromise professionalism or anything but just the comfort of that person is very important…

“In 2008 we assigned police personnel to them 2012 we did it. Now the people who were assigned to presidential candidates were not dismissed. They were not tagged as NPP or NDC or CPP or PNC or GCPP police personnel, they are still in the service” he added.

These comments come on the back of the arrest of some three South Africans ex-police officers who were in the country to train persons believed to be the personal bodyguards of the New Patriotic Party’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo.

The public debate drew the police’s attention to the protection of key political figures in the country. The police therefore said it would provide protection for the flagbearers of the various political parties by giving them six officers. Four officers for the flagbearer and 2 for the running mates.

According to him the police is working around the clock to ensure they play their role as stakeholders ahead of election 2016.

Chief Superintendent Benjamin Agordzor indicated that “we are doing a daily kind of stimulation exercises, we are going through training all the time, we are re-orienting our personnel, we are conducting a lot of training program for them and meeting stakeholders as well. We are not operating in the vacuum…. we have intensified our intelligence gathering and everything is so holistic and so integrated…”

The Institute of Economic Affairs (I.E.A) has organized a National Stakeholders Forum, to impress upon, their critical roles in ensuring peaceful elections in the November polls. The forum was under the theme “towards credible, acceptable and violence free election: the role of key stakeholders”.