The Communication Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused the government of paying lips service to the Ghana police service. 

Sammy Gyamfi alleged on Newsfile, a Joy News current affairs programme, Saturday that the development has led to a state of heightened insecurity in the country. 

“The rising violent attack on policemen is disheartening. As a political party, I will like to join our flagbearer to express our deepest condolence and commensuration to the families of these police officers who have been killed,” he said. 

Sammy Gyamfi added that the government needs to go beyond the rhetoric of the police being its priority and demonstrate a real commitment of tooling the Service. “We are not seeing much today in the area of retooling the police. We are paying lips service and we are celebrating mediocrity. Look at the number of vehicles the vice president who is the chairman of the Police Council gave, 567.

“Communicators of the government and the NP are all over the place celebrating that when we know that is wholly inadequate if you look at the logistical constraints our men in uniform are faced with.

“ It is either we are committed to equipping the police with the necessary accoutrements to do their work or we are not. It is time to rise above the rhetoric’s, the political talk and the platitudes,” he pointed out.   

Mr Gyamfi said it is not asking too much of a government that has accessed huge revenue from taxes and oil resources.

Five police officers have been slain in the last 30 days in the line of duty and the police are on a manhunt for the killers.

Four suspects have been arrested in the latest incident at Buduburam near Kasoa, where two officers were killed.

The Interior Minister, Ambrose Dery, has ordered immediate arming of all traffic police officers as part of changes in policing, to ensure the officers are better protected.

But the opposition member has called government’s commitment into question.

Sammy Gyamfi doubts the government's commitment to providing bulletproofs and weapons for all the 30,000 plus existing police officers. 

He wondered why government waited until officers were killed before making those commitments if indeed the logistics actually exist.  

The NDC Communication Officer believes the needed logistics are simply not there and the government is simply celebrating mediocrity when it said it has also given 500 vehicles to the police.

He called on the government to learn from the example of what previous governments did. 

According to him in 2016 for example, the government of the day provided ¢15000 vehicles for the police after it gave the service a fully furnished ultra-modern laboratory.