Sekondi Dec.9,GNA-Miss Betty Busumtwi-Sam, Deputy Western Regional Minister, on Tuesday inaugurated the reconstituted Regional Police Committee at the Residency, Sekondi.

In an address, she said the committee would advice the Police Council in matters relating to the administration of the Police to enable them perform their statutory mandate of maintaining the peace. Miss Busumtwi-Sam hoped the 23-member committee would work assiduously and would not let the region down. She said problems of the region included chieftaincy disputes, land litigations, illegal small scale mining and drugs which border on criminality.

Miss Busumtwi-Sam noted that crime rate in the region was declining as a result of the collaborative effort of security agencies and the Narcotics Control Board and said, "We need to maintain this new status quo and even work harder to further reduce the crime rate in our society". She said the oil find has attracted all manner of people including deviants who would like to perpetrate all types of crimes ranging from assault to rape and armed robbery, among others.

Miss Busumtwi-Sam said to stem crime, there is the need for the public to assist the security agencies and one way of doing this is for people to be vigilant adding: "We need to educate and encourage our people to be forthcoming with information and leaks that would assist the Police in their work".

She said crime combat is a shared responsibility and the Police would not succeed if society fails to collaborate their efforts. Miss Busumtwi-Sam urged the committee to consider the welfare of Police personnel in its deliberations because they must be motivated to deliver. Mr. Justice Robin Batu, Regional Supervising High Court Judge, who swore-in members of the committee said High Courts were having difficulty in obtaining jurors for murder or indictable crimes. He said the Judicial Service had written to many organizations requesting people to volunteer as jurors but people are not responding and this delayed many murder trials.

Mr. Batu said many murder suspects remand in custody as a result of lack of jurors although warrants for their detention have expired. He said transfer of personnel of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) also delayed the trial of cases they investigated. Mr. Batu urged the Police administration to find out whether CID personnel are investigating cases before transferring them to ensure smooth administration of justice.