The Ghana Police Service and Response One Ghana (ROG) Limited, a technologically driven electronic security and home automation company have jointly launched a safe community project to ensure safe, secure and peaceful communities in the country.
Safe Community Project
The ‘Safe Community Project’ will be implemented with the Community Policing Unit of the Ghana Police Service, which was established to bridge the communication gap between the police and the public.
The pilot phase of this national project is scheduled to take place at the Oyibi Village Valley Community, where its success will make room to expand to other communities across the country.
Director of Community Policing Unit of GPS, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Rev. Mrs Laurencia Akorli launched the project on behalf of the Inspector General of Police and Police Management Board to help make communities crime-free.
She urged the citizenry to prioritise the formation of Neighbourhood Watch Committees to reduce crimes within their communities, noting the willingness of the police to partner will all stakeholders.
She noted that the Police Management Board welcome the collaboration from ROG because it will go a long way to address most of the security concerns of the nation in reducing crime.
She said the ROG team had distinguished themselves as ambassadors of peace with years of experience and expertise to assist and give advice in security matters.
Community Policing
ACP Akorli said Community Policing is a modern trend that gets the police and the community working together to solve problems, address community safety problems and adopt suitable measures to improve the quality of people.
She noted that the partnership is timely because the police will get a quick alert from ROG and move to assist the people under attack especially as the police cannot be everywhere at every time.
The Director of Community Policing Unit said the global standard for policing is one police personnel to 450 people but the case of Ghana is that of one police personnel to 723 people, which is not good for community safety. This makes the partnership with the community and ROG more critical, she stressed.
Programmes Manager at ROG, Madam Manubea Ohene-Menyah said over the years, the technologically driven electronic security company has collaborated with police service to provide security with response to various communities.
She said since security goes beyond providing security architecture in individual homes, there is the need to educate community members on ensuring safety for themselves and neighbours from criminal activities.
Madam Manubea Ohene-Menyah said community members needed to unite towards fighting crime in communities to remove opportunities for crime, install better lighting systems, and locks, build fences and encourage everyone to report suspicious activities. A community member, Mr Wahjib Mohammed who spoke on the behalf of the President of the Oyibi Valley View Community Association, Mr Paul Bediajko, said they are willing to add community police outreach to their existing Association towards minimising crimes in the area. He described the service of Response One Ghana as an enhanced policing since they can trigger alerts for the police to take action, noting that the community holds the collaboration in high esteem.
