The Upper West Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) is petitioning the Interior Minister and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) over what it described as the mass transfer of police personnel out of the region without any replacements.

The RCC said between 2015 and 2017, out of the 1,500 police personnel in the region, as many as 583 have been transferred out of the region, without any replacements.

Mr Amidu Chinnia Issahaku, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, who expressed the concern during the Upper West RCC meeting in Wa, said the situation has led to a reduction of police visibility in the region, the result of which is the rise in armed robbery and other criminal activities.

“The police visibility is going down because of those transfers and so as RCC, we have decided that we will write formally to the Interior Minister and the IGP to express our concern about the manner in which police personnel are being transferred out of the region without replacements”, he said.

“We are not saying that police personnel should not be transferred out of the region, but the police service has a duty to ensure that there is a balance between number of officers and personnel that are being transferred out of the region and those that are supposed to come in to replace them”, he said.

Mr Issahaku said those replacements needed to be done so that the region would have enough police men and women to man the various barriers and also attend to the needed patrols to ensure that the safety of people in the region are guaranteed.

He expressed concern about the numerous robbery cases within the Wa-Bole road, adding that even though most of the robbery cases often occur within the jurisdiction of the Northern Region, many of the people affected were either from the Upper West Region or were people coming into the region to transact various businesses.

“So it is necessary for the Upper West Regional Security Council (REGSEC) to meet our counterparts from the Northern Region so that we can discuss how we can collaborate to ensure that armed robbery cases on the Kumasi Highway is reduced to the barest minimum”, he said.

He said the region needed investors to come and invest in the region to create jobs for the people, but this could only happen when they put an end to the criminal activities.