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Security and safety analyst, Dr Adam Bonaa has disagreed with private legal practitioner, Martin Kpebu over his claims that the police have no mandate to impound the cars of people who fail to produce a license when stopped.

According to the security analyst, the police by the provisions of the Road Traffic Act, 2004 (Act 683) are clothed with such discretionary powers to impound the cars of such category of road traffic offenders.

“The law gives the police that discretion and so to say that it is not legitimate is wrong,” he told GhanaWeb in an interview.

Martin Kpebu speaking on a recent edition of Joy FM’s morning show emphasised that it is rather wrongful parking that warrants the impoundment of the vehicle.

“Failure to produce a license doesn’t result in impounding of a vehicle and we are not about to allow that now. The police will be breaking the law if they should start.
“You can’t just seize someone’s property just like that. The police don’t also have the right to take the license to the police station.
“If you don’t have a license, they could charge you for driving without a license and that is a different matter, but if you have it and it’s not with you, you can always go and bring it,” he explained.

However according to Dr Bonaa, the private legal practitioner should know better and advocate for a better exercise of the discretionary powers granted the police.

He warned that such assertions coming from the lawyer goes a long way to affect efforts in ensuring discipline on the roads and curbing accidents.

"It is all discretionary so the police can decide to use their discretion the way it suits them but the moment you come to say the police cannot impound your vehicle it leads to obstruction of a police officer who is performing his lawful duty according to the law.

“This is my concern, that when these things are said and those of us who understand these things don’t talk about it, people suffer believing that I heard it from here so I am not going to allow you to impound my vehicle, they obstruct the police and before you see they are arrested and charged for very minor traffic infractions,” he said.

Despite his concerns, Dr Bonaa noted the need for the police service to implement a robust spot fine system that helps to avoid the current situation of officers adopting various means such as impounding of cars to force traffic offenders to appear in court.

The security analyst noted that having an effective spot fine regime will ultimately help promote compliance to road traffic regulations and reduce accidents.