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Mr Mark Owen Woyongo, Minister of Interior, has said that the curbing of corruption in the country should be tackled collectively and holistically instead of the current window dressing method being used. He said citizens including security agencies have a major role to play in curbing corruption and that the situation should not be left for politicians and government officials alone to handle. Mr Woyongo said this on Wednesday when he addressed a durbar of security agencies in the Central Region as part of his two-day familiarization tour of institutions under the Ministry of Interior. The tour which enabled the Minister to interact with personnel from the Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service, Prison Service, Ghana Immigration Service and the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) to know at first hand their problems. The visit also took him to the Ankaful Maximum Security Prison. The Minister pointed out that the recent corrupt practices exposed at the National Service Secretariat were not committed by politicians and asked that all must be disciplined in their duties, stressing that both the giver and receiver were to blame when bribery and corruption issues came up. Mr Woyongo who is also the Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central cautioned security personnel not to dabble in politics, stressing that they were professionals and should act as such and that anyone who wanted to do politics should put down his or her uniform. He said there should be no instance where anyone of them should be labeled as belonging to any political party and that the political party they belong to is Ghana and they owed allegiance and responsibility towards the government in power. The Minister commended the security agencies for maintaining law and order as well as peace in the country, which he described as a prerequisite for development, noting that Ghana globally has been recognized as a haven of peace, good governance, freedom of speech and democracy and attributed this to the support and cooperation from the security agencies. Mr Woyongo said though they were confronted with daunting challenges they did not allow the challenges to put them down but continued to work and assured them that the situation would not remain like that forever, and that everything was being done to change the situation. The Minister who was informed of a �catalog of problems� ranked from inadequate budgetary allocation, lack of fuel, vehicles, logistics as well as office and residential accommodation gave the assurance that the Ministry was putting in place measures to solve the problems. Mr Woyongo said his outfit had worked out a package with the Ministry of Finance worth 300 million dollars to purchase various brands of vehicles, communication equipment and the necessary tools and equipment for the various agencies. The Minister said though the security agencies had chalked some successes, there were still some amount of indiscipline and bad nuts among them who continued to drag the good image of the service in the mud and urged them to name and shame such bad nuts. He urged them to remain resolute and disciplined and tasked the various police training schools to train policemen and women who would be disciplined, have respect for authority and above all incorruptible, adding that if they are disciplined they would be given the needed respect. The Minister was unhappy with the power block situation prevailing in the service, noting that in some cases people used all sort of methods including �juju� to eliminate others so as to get to the top and described the situation as unfortunate. Mr Woyongo further expressed concern about security personnel staying at one station for so many years, noting that, the situation made them stale and vulnerable to corruption and that at most security personnel should stay at a station for about five years. Touching on the Ebola disease, the Minister told them that the disease was real and cautioned them to be careful in the performance of their duties particularly when handling dead bodies. He said personnel at all the entry points and coastlines would be provided with protective clothes and hand sanitizers and urged them to endeavour to observe personal hygiene. All the regional commanders of the various security agencies who took turns to brief the Minister of their problems all mentioned inadequate budgetary allocation, lack of both residential and office accommodation, inadequate fuel supply to enhance operational mobility, lack of vehicles and accessories for servicing vehicles available, as well as the lack of office equipment and stationery as the major challenges facing them. DCOP Mr Ransford Moses Ninson, the Central Regional Police Commander, on behalf of the other regional commanders commended the Minister for visiting the Region and was hopeful that he would help address the numerous challenges confronting them.