Koforidua, Mar.24, GNA - The National President of the Police Wives Association (POLWA) Mrs Agnes Owusu Nsiah has called on police officers' wives to desist from engaging in political arguments at their various barracks.

She stressed the need for them to avoid taking political sides due to the fact that the work of the police was non-partisan, adding "any political moves taken by the wives could hamper the effective discharge of the duties of their husbands."

Mrs Owusu Nsiah, who is the wife of the Inspector General Police, made the call when she paid a familiarisation visit to the POLWA members in the Eastern Region on Wednesday at Koforidua.

She further entreated the women to show special interest in their children's education by cutting down on funeral expenses and also check their children against pre-marital sex, which, she noted, had become a major cause of teenage pregnancies and the spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Mrs Nsiah appealed to the Regional Police Commander to make the necessary logistics available to assist the women to improve on the environmental conditions of the barracks and assured the women of better conditions of living in the barracks soon.

In a welcoming address, the Eastern Regional chairman of the POLWA, Mrs Margaret Darkey, appealed to Mrs Owusu Nsiah to use her office to press for a transfer truck to be allocated to the regional police service permanently to facilitate the smooth transfer of their husbands. She noted that transfers of their husbands had always been without prior notice, thereby leaving them stranded when they packed their belongings and had to wait for so many days arranging for trucks to transport them to their new post, thus "compelling us to live like refugees."

The Regional Commander of Police, ACP Vincent K. Dzakpata, urged the POLWA members to form co-operative societies in order to access loan facilities from financial institutions and the various District Assemblies to undertake viable ventures to promote their welfare. He called on the POLWA branch in the region to go beyond funeral attendance to undertake barracks cleaning and income-generating activities such as tie and dye, Batik, soap making, bee-keeping and snail breeding to empower themselves financially.

The Presiding Member of the New Juaben Municipal Assembly, Ms. Beatrice B. Boateng, who chaired the function, revealed that the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) was not accessible to members of POLWA in the municipality because records indicated that payment of the loans were difficult to redeem from members who had earlier benefited from the facility.

She noted that the unexpected transfers of their husbands made it difficult for the Assembly to retrieve the loans and the beneficiaries also failed to notify the Assembly on where they had been transferred to for the necessary arrangements to be made for the payment.

Ms Boateng, therefore, asked the Regional Executives of the POLWA to endeavour to up with measures to facilitate the smooth payments of loans received under the PAF so that they would be considered in the granting of the loans to improve their lot.

She advised the POLWA members to discuss at their meetings how best they, as wives of police officers, could help their husbands to discharge their duties as officers entrusted with the security of the state, saying that it was a disgrace for them to be quarrelling in the barracks.