Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare says his centralisation of information flow within the Ghana Police Service is in line with international best practices.
In recent times, the IGP has placed a gag on police officers across the country preventing them from interacting with the media; as a result, all police information comes directly from the Police Headquarters in Accra.
Speaking at Parliament’s ad hoc meeting tasked with investigating an alleged plot to oust him from office, the IGP noted that this action was to curb the spread of unverified information from within the police fraternity to the public.
He said, “It is something we have discussed at POMAB and agreed upon a strategy for redefining our engagement with the public in a manner that sits well with international best practices.
“We’re running a system where when we get up in the morning, everybody across the country, across at times, district division and regional level granting interviews on matters of police from a perspective that at times not informed by the full facts and at the end of it all, when the facts come the organization looks unpresentable.
“It’s not the invention of Dampare, it is something that we looked at and then got all the commanders at all levels involved and get their inputs before it’s handled.
“That is why you see that in recent times information from police across all our media space are delivered on matters as soon as we have the full facts that will inform the public to continue to deepen their trust, confidence and respect for us.”
While the new strategy has been condemned by the Ghana Journalists Association and some civil society groups, security analyst, Emmanuel Bombande, believes it is the best way to have an effective coordinated flow of information.
“The flow of information can only be effective when it is also well coordinated. When it is not well coordinated it can reverse the intentions for which the flow was intended,” he said.
The Scotland Yard in the United Kingdom is perhaps the standard for measuring modern-day day policing globally.
In conversation with the co-host of BBC Focus on Africa, Daniel Dadzie, on international best practices, he quotes the authorised professional practice document published by the College of Police in the UK
“There’s a section here that says that ‘it [the police] should be understood as supporting and encouraging engagement between the media and police and it should not restrict engagement to those in senior positions. Responsibility for communicating rests with all those working in policing irrespective of seniority.’
“It says here, ‘the officers and staff of all ranks and roles are encouraged to provide factual information to the media concerning operational incidents or investigations.’ So this is basically the document that guides policing here in the UK according to their website,” he said.