BRITISH HIGH C'SSION SUPPORTS POLICE SERVICE (Page 25, Lead)

31/01/08

Story and Picture: Mary Mensah

THE British High Commission is providing intelligence management system work stations for the Ghana Police Service to enhance communication within the service.
The work stations, which will be available to the service by March, this year, will equip the national headquarters to communicate quickly and effectively with four regional headquarters - Tamale, Kumasi, Takoradi and Accra.
It will also enable the service to share data and intelligence with other police forces in the sub-region, as well as the new Scotland Yard and other international security agencies.
The outgoing Political Officer of the High Commission, Mr Gary Nicholls, who has completed a four-and-a-half-year duty tour of the country, disclosed this yesterday when he paid a farewell call on the police administration.
At the same ceremony, the new High Commissioner was introduced to the administration and certificates were presented to police officers who had undertaken training courses in the United Kingdom.
He said the new system would help the police to collect all kinds of information, which would be stored and later shared with other security agencies to enhance their performance.
Mr Nicholls said there had been a fruitful collaboration between the High Commission and the Ghana Police Service, which had resulted in the training of over 45 officers in the UK and 200 in Ghana.
He expressed the hope that there would be further collaboration between the two institutions, and added that “ I will be keeping an eye and monitoring events in Ghana. I am leaving with fond memories”.
The New British High Commissioner, Dr Nick Westcott, for his part, commended the police for maintaining law and order at the Ghana 2008 tournament.
He said this showed that the various international and local training courses for the service had paid off.
He said his first official assignment was at the police administration and he hoped to work closely together with the service in order to deepen the co-operation between the high commission and the police service
For his part, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr Patrick Kwarteng Acheampong, said Mr Nicholls resumed training courses for the police which had ceased for over 15 years before he took office.
He said the outgoing political officer also helped to draw a new programme and assisted in the revision of courses being offered by the National Police College to meet international standards.
Mr Acheampong said currently police officers were sent to the UK every year to pursue various courses, which, they, in turn, taught their colleagues on their return.
The IGP said retired or serving police officers from the UK also came to teach police personnel and between 400 and 500 personnel had benefited from it.
He expressed the service’s appreciation to the High Commission and the outgoing Political Officer for the immense contribution and assistance to the police service and hoped that the co-operation between the two institutions would be further deepened.