The Hanns Seidel Foundation, a German party-associated and taxpayer-money-funded political research foundation has pledged its commitment to strengthening community policing to reduce crime-reported cases.
According to the foundation, their initiative to strengthen the community policing system in Ghana with special emphasis on crime-prone areas is to create a conducive environment where police offer to interact with citizens to enable them to make the community safe as their presence is always felt.
“Hanns Seidel Foundation has started an initiative programme called community policing aimed at reducing terrorism and crime in the country. Consequently, we have trained officers on how to interact with citizens in the community, focusing specifically on development and strengthening security. We are expecting that in the future policemen and citizens will become one family in order to share actualities, and security tips together.
Regional programmes Coordinator for the Hans Seidel Foundation, Aridja Frank made this statement in an interview with journalists at a police sensitization workshop programme on building police-community engagement for safety and security in Accra.
In addition, she stated the foundation has designed a sponsorship program with funding support from the German Economic Development Ministry.
“ We sometimes receive donor support from the European Union which helps us finance some aspects of our training programmes in enhancing community policing,” she said.
Madam Frank further added that the training workshop organized for the Ghana Police Service was successful. Some 90 personnel have been trained in various training programmes in transformational police professionalism and civility compared with other countries.
She said the third training session trained some 24 males and 6 females across the country.
BY Prince Fiifi Yorke