Vice Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Samuel Atta Akyea says police officers who arrested officials of the Ghana Water Company demanding payment of bills should be sanctioned.

He said the act is unacceptable and should not be condoned because the police officers are not above the law.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, the MP for Akyem Abuakwa South said he is extremely concerned about the situation, adding, “immediately an institution behaves [as if it is] above the law, it is a jungle warfare that we are in.”

“It is important to punish the police officials who would chase out officials of the water company or even arrest them, they should be disciplined, it is very very important.”

It came to light Monday, April 18, 2016 at the Public Accounts Committee sitting that some officials of the Ghana Water Company were chased out or arrested by some police officers when they demanded the payment of accumulated bills.

Deputy Local Government Minister Emmanuel Agyekum who appeared before the Public Accounts Committee Monday revealed that water bills of police personnel in some districts have piled up because company officials are unable to collect the bills from the police officers.

According to him, his men are either intimidated or arrested and put into custody by police officers when they demand payment of bills from defaulting police personnel.

For fear of being arrested, the personnel of the community water and sanitation have therefore decided not to demand the bills at all.

The 2011 audited accounts of the Community Water and Sanitation Development Board indicates that police officers owed over ₵74,000.

The amount represents accumulated bill covering living quarters of some officers which has been outstanding for years now.

Atta Akyea said the situation cannot be allowed to continue.

He said the Inspector General of Police, John Kudalor who is expected to appear before the Committee today, must “redeem the debt because I am tempted to believe that there is a whole budgetary allocation to meet such contingencies and the rest of them.”

Even if there isn’t, the MP proposed that a standing order which will compel banks that deal with the police service to pay the Water Company directly.

Contributing to the discussion, President of IMANI Ghana, Franklin Cudjoe criticized the police for putting up such a behaviour.

He said although the situation is irritating, it is “actually symptomatic of the situation we have in the public sector.”

In his view, the nature of the finance system and especially how the public system is managed is problematic and requires a total restructuring.

“There are other sectors of the public sector which are paying humongous debts but because they are not law enforcers, they are not arresting people who come after them. So anyhow you look at this, there is a complete disorder, chaos, incoherence, with the policy logicality that we have.

“Not long ago we almost quadrupled the pay of police officials through single spine and I recall some of us were warning that be careful because if you do these things you have little to service and maintain facilities. What we are seeing is symptomatic of that complete disregard for normal conduct of organized governance.”