Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has reassured personnel of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) of the administration’s plan to supply them with ‘valuable weapons’ required to combat crime and create a safe environment for all.
The Vice President is this time around not talking about supplying tanks and ammunition to the police service but is rather hoping to leverage on government’s digitisation drive after the successful integration of databases and systems to make for easy and flexible verification and identification of persons of interest or even suspects.
If the said valuable weapons are successfully delivered and connected to integrated databases, Dr Bawumia said will help to ‘’leapfrog many other advanced countries’’ in the area of surveillance and crime fighting.
Dr Bawumia said this when he on behalf of government, received a $2m million worth of mobile device and software package to help in tailing suspects who may be on the watch list of the police in a bid to bring digitisation to bear in protecting the citizens.
‘’If you’re going to benefit from digitalisation, you cannot allow the system that you’re setting up to sit in silos.
“You have to integrate the systems so that you can benefit from knowing if you’re in a crime database and you integrate it with the national ID database, you can tell when you meet somebody who is on the crime database that this person is either a criminal or someone who is wanted.
“So the issue of integration of the police database with the NIA database is very important. With these devices (mobile device software) it is very important that when the Police meet you on the street they can tell who you are with or without your Ghana card.
“They can tell if you’re wanted or not. They can tell whether the vehicle you’re driving is registered or not because you’re linking the databases. So it is a valuable weapon in the fight against crime and the protection of the public and the safety of the public.”
The Vice President who has been spearheading the administration’s digitalisation drive described the donation as the beginning.
“We are going to see more and more devices in the hands of police officers across the country so that policing will be very effective in Ghana and this is something that Ghana and the Ghana police service will be proud of because we’re moving into an area where in fact many advanced countries are still trying to get into that area.”
The Inspector General of Police Dr Akufo Dampare who was visibly excited about the donation expressed optimism about how it will help the men in uniform as part of the police transformation agenda.
“We can’t wait to use them because we know it will transform Policing in Ghana.”
On his part, the Executive Director of Margin ID groups of companies who are partnering with the National Identification Authority (NIA) in the production of the Ghana Card said, the donation is to complement the work of the NIA, plus an added advantage.
‘’We support the Police because we can see the dynamism within which the Police has increased visibility. And with the encouragement of the Vice President, we are ready to support the Police in their digitisation agenda as part of the national digitisation policy.
“The Police protect us all, so our corporate social responsibility objective is to help them continue on the dynamic trail on which they are. Having done a tour of the police facility, I’m even more convinced that this donation is in the right direction.
“Our donation is an extension of the national identification infrastructure which today has over 17.5 million people on their database both foreigners and nationals who are the centre of the digitisation agenda because it allows everybody to know people who are accessing resources and who they claim they are.’’
The technology is also expected to help put surveillance on suspects wherever they may be in the country.
“The Police in this sense will be able to identify people in real-time with the device management platform with or without the Ghana Card in whatever part of Ghana that they are. They can also in real-time tell people who are on a watch list for whatever reason of crime and will be able to bring digitisation to bear in protecting the citizens.”
The company has since donated 100 mobile device software that have been delivered to the Ghana Police Service with a promise to donate more going forward.
