An alleged scandal is brewing under the watch of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr George Akuffo Dampare, whose appointment last year August was hailed by many well-meaning Ghanaians earning him the title ‘celebrity IGP’.
According to information intercepted by DAYBREAK, some police officers who failed their examination in August 2020 under his predecessor James Oppong Boanuh, are briskly being admitted into the Police College this year in Accra and Winneba.
This comes barely a week after the Police administration revealed that some fairly new officers in the Service, have been identified as belonging to an armed robbery gang parading in the Service as officers.
Recall that two of such officers who were involved in a bullion van robbery at James Town in Accra resulting in the death of an officer Emmanuel Osei were shot to death recently during an operation to arrest their counterparts.
A police statement mentioned the two disgraced officers as Constable Reindolph Gyimah Ansah and Corporal Stephen Kwaku Nyame.
Now the questionable officers were deemed not to be up to the task and so as a result of the huge failure that year, only one batch was admitted for training. After the course, they will come out as ‘Assistant Superintendent of Police’.
The unsuccessful officers were said to have scored less than the pass mark of 59 after an examination conducted by the University of Cape Coast (UCC).
The failure rate according to the source was so high that some scored as low as 20, 35 and 50 among others.
That examination, this paper gathered, was so well organized that those who even scored 58 marks, were not admitted into the College.
But the reverse appears to be playing out this time under Dr Dampare as some 84 of these unqualified officers have been infiltrated into this year’s batch and have already completed medicals.
Interestingly, aside from the fact that some of these 84 scored some of the lowest marks, others did not even take part in the UCC organized examination at all.
But just like it happened at the Ghana Law School where then acting Director who has now been nominated as a Court of Appeal judge, Maxwell Opoku-Agyemang, was implicated for facilitating the inclusion of unqualified applicants into the school, a similar move appears to be happening in the Police service.
The unqualified 84 are said to have earned the call up simply because they are either drivers of politicians or drivers of senior Police officers.
The move has therefore infuriated some of the Policemen and women thus bringing uneasy calm within the Police set-up.
For instance, two ladies (names withheld) both from Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, who are among the favoured, had one scoring 53 marks which was not a pass mark has been included in this year’s batch.
The second lady said to be married to a senior Police officer, was also considered for the College. This paper was told that as at the time of the examination, she was a sergeant but she has been promoted to inspector.
This is interesting because this comes on the heels of calls by some experts and other concerned Ghanaians that government takes a second look at how these police officers are recruited to ensure people with questionable characters are not admitted into the service.
