The Executive Director of Partnership and Planning, INTERPOL Secretariat, Mr Carl Alexandre (2nd left), handing over a scanner to the Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery Looking on are the EU Ambassador, Madam Diana Acconcia (1st left), and the Director-General of the CID, Mrs Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah (1st right).

Police CID receives equipment from EU; To enhance operations

Salomey Appiah-Adjei Oct - 03 - 2018 , 12:06 2 minutes read

The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has received information and communications technology (ICT) equipment from the European Union (EU) to enhance its electronic data collection system.

It includes 40 workstations, 40 scanners, 40 uninterrupted power supply units (UPS) and servers.

The presentation, which was made at the CID Headquarters in Accra yesterday, is to facilitate work at the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) unit of the CID.

A philanthropist, Mr Robert Ashie Quartey, also donated two pick-up vehicles and six motorbikes to the Ghana Police Service to support the police in their operations.

Support

The EU Ambassador to Ghana, Madam Diana Acconcia, said insecurity was a threat to the peace of a nation, hence the need to support law enforcement agencies in Ghana and West Africa to fight crime.

She commended Ghana for the strides made with the WAPIS, adding that the system would strengthen the capacity of law enforcement agencies to collect and manage data on crime efficiently.

Significance

The Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, said the government recognised the important role the police were playing in ensuring stability and harmony in the country, for which reason it was resourcing the Police Service with GHc800 million to facilitate its operations.

Distribution

The Director General of the CID, Mrs Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, said the equipment would be distributed among 22 police stations across the country.

She said so far WAPIS had recorded over 15,000 cases in its operations.

According to the director, about 98 per cent of crime data captured at the Nsawam Prison had been loaded into the WAPIS database, while large volumes of data on criminal offences from the Ghana Immigration Service that were previously not shared were now being shared on the database.

Mrs Addo-Danquah expressed satisfaction with the operations of WAPIS, saying that the platform had not only enabled information to be shared promptly but also enhanced cooperation among stakeholders.

WAPIS

WAPIS is an initiative funded by the EU that was launched in 2015. It was established to collect, centralise, share and analyse criminal information from relevant national and international law enforcement agencies in support of crime investigations.

It also provides access to information on crime among the Ghana Prisons Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the Narcotics Control Board and the Attorney General’s Department in Ghana and other participating countries.