Wa, Sept 3, GNA- Mr. Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minister at the weekend appealed to the police in the region to exhibit a high level of diplomacy, tact and maturity in the discharge of their duties. "I am saying this because you are dealing with a region that has a larger proportion of its inhabitants as illiterates and therefore, their level of thinking and understanding of issues might differ from yours." Mr. Dery made this appeal at Wa, when he paid a surprise visit to the regional police command to find out their performance and problems at the regional and district levels.

The Minister, who arrived at the police premises at the time that they were having their monthly welfare meeting, told them to embark on educational programmes on issues anytime they want to implement a policy so that the people would not have any cause to complain.

"I know you have a lot of problems at your various places, but I can assure you that the government is doing everything possible to make you comfortable and well-equipped to tackle the daily problems that confront you," he said.

The Regional Minister commended the regional police command and their collaborators for successfully carrying out an operation during which they arrested unlicensed and unregistered motorbikes in the municipality and pledged the support of the regional coordinating council to assist them to continue with their good work.

Mr. George Ankobil, Regional Police Commander said accommodation was becoming a serious challenge to their operations in the region. 'The population of the region is increasing on daily basis, and so we also need to increase our staffing level, but as a lot of them live in rented houses, landlords are becoming unnecessarily difficult towards us, because we do not have our own barracks."

He said the monthly welfare meetings offered an opportunity for all district officers to converge at the regional command to review their performance and forge ahead for efficient execution of their duties.

Mr. Ankobil commended the Regional Minister for that surprise visit and the donation of one million cedis to their welfare fund, adding that the gesture would further boost the morale of police in the region.

Mr. Robert Ayalingo, deputy Regional Police Commander said, apart from the unregistered motorbikes they were seizing, they would also embarked on an exercise to check people who were possessing unregistered firearms and called on all those who have not registered theirs to do so before the exercise.