By Vanessa Adjei and Priscilla Akoto
As a measure to bridge the gap between Police and community, the Ghana Police Service, has organized a three-day training for its Public Affairs Directorate. It is also to help bring information to the doorsteps of the public. This is part of efforts to enhance police-media-public-relations to curb unprofessionalism in the Service.
Speaking at the Training, the Director-General of the Police Public Affairs Directorate, DCOP Kwesi Ofori, said the training will deepen the partnership between the media and the Police Service.
“The police believe this will deepen their relationship with the media and general public for there are the nerve centers of dissemination of public information and hope they will do better.”
The training focuses on the emerging trends in Police PR and the need to help sanitize the media space when reporting on police issues. The capacity-building programme is the fifth in the series since last year and the first for the public Affairs Directorate. The course is on four thematic areas that seek to address the gaps within the Police PR and enhance Professionalism. The Director-General, Public Affairs Directorate, DCOP Kwesi Ofori, indicated the training will strengthen the cooperation between the public through the media.
“The conference is organized to ensure that public relations understand the four thematic areas and also drive into it and expand their PR frontiers by bringing on board the media and members of the general public to understand what the police do and the activity they involve in and also discuss crime-related matters.”
The Ghana Police Service has since October last year, been undertaking the refresher course to help build on the capacity of personnel. It forms part of a series of training to improve the professional competence of the Service. It is supported by seidel foundation, an NGO based in Germany.
Touching on what people describe as the rambo style of arresting media personnel, DCOP said erroneous because no one he said is not above the law.
“We are all subjected to the laws of the country and so when one is invited to appear before the police on a subject matter related to alleged criminality, it is the ghana police service’s duty to avail themselves and answer questions, but when they decide they are special and will not appear before the police than the police might use other processes like obtaining warrant of arrest them which sometimes the police act according to the dictate of the court.”