Has the Inspector General of Police [IGP] Mr. Paul Tawiah Quaye, smelled the scent which is well known to be existing in the country�s prisons before? Does he know the situation that rightly exists in that dark room called prison?
If he has never smelled the scent or observed the situation there before, maybe this is the time for him to take the advantage to smell it or feel what truly pertains there so that when he is back from serving in that darkroom he will add his voice to the call to raise it to international standard.
No but there has been no reportage feeding the public about his official visit to the correctional dark rooms to ascertain the situations there as prison graduates have always complained that they are bad.
If 24 of his junior rank officers who felt their dismissals were wrong and went to court and came out successful and now dragging their Inspector Koti to the same court over contempt charges, where do you think the Koti boss will spend some days at if he is found guilty to the charges?
So this is not the time to go there as the boss of the blue uniformed security service man to inspect how human beings are packed like sardines as they sleep on the bare floor in the evening and sit like stones arranged to serve as sea defense at the beaches.
Anyway what was the charge for dismissing those junior rank peace officers?
Simple and stupid, they were charged for opening their barracks for the media to use to lambast the police service of the poor accommodation problems they were facing.
But when the media went round to investigate and double check on the tips, didn�t they find out that they were in fact the exact situation at the barracks and reported on it stressing on the need to improve it?
By dismissing these peace officers, are the officers who served on the Police Service Enquiry Board telling us that the situations at the police barracks were not bad as what the T.V cameras captured and reported by the print media?
Some situations at certain district as well as regional barracks are so bad that no words can be used to describe the situations on the ground. At most barracks sewage systems have broken down, pipe lines are not serving officers, the compound are always occupied by sheep, and goats and fowls whiles the buildings have not seen new paintings since they were constructed.
It could be recalled that some where in the early 2000, my magic mentor Mr. A.C.Ohene, then Eastern Regional editor of the Chronicle, exposed the rot at Koforidua Central Police barracks.
The story with pictures exposed the broken sewage pipes which caused spillage of fecal matter from the police cell to gutters that served the residents around as the stench made life very difficult for residents around the police station.
Rejoinders made Mr. A.C.Ohene stood his grounds and filed more stories which left the service with no option that to rehabilitate the barracks which they did to the relief of officers who were occupying the barracks.
Does the IGP know Koforidua Galloway barracks? Maybe the situation there has changed for the better. If not was he aware that Block Six was described as zongo because of the dirty environment over there?
Former IGP Peter Nanfuri, did not believe his eyes when he visited there at one of his official duties and saw the mountain full of palm kernel wastes dumped there after the extraction of the oil.
Possibly this is the time for inspector Koti to tell us why many of the landlords cancelled the tenancy agreement they had with the service to house their officers and men. They were simply and stupidly destroying the houses they were occupying.
Let inspector Koti accept that those junior rank officers were dismissed wrongly, re-stationed them and take a nationwide duty tour to the stations and barracks to inspect situations and find solutions to them.
Dismissing them on this mere charge will not fix the problem bad at the barracks period.
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