Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, ACP Bright Oduro Monday told Joy News that the Ghana Police Service had no Anti-Bomb Squad. The Service was called to duty Monday morning to deal with a bomb threat at the premises of the Italian Embassy in Accra, where a disappointed visa applicant who had been unsuccessful at obtaining a visa, was alleged to have threatened to bomb the place. The Police describe their response to the distress call as ‘rapid’, and moved to secure the embassy building, staff and visa applicants. Luckily, no bomb was discovered at the premises, but had there been any, the police would have been incapacitated to defuse the bomb. According to ACP Oduro who was speaking to Joy News at Midday, the Ghana Police Service did not have the unit but relied on the services of the Ghana Armed Forces, which has a bomb detonation squad and expertise. “We don’t have but the military have, and if we have cause to believe that there is bomb planted, we quickly inform the military,” he said. ‘Bombs’ and ‘bombings’ have not been part of the usual vocabulary of the ideal Ghanaian, however the nation has in recent years had to deal with a couple of bomb threats, which luckily turned out to be hoaxes. With the growing sophistication of crime and criminal methods, DSP Kwesi Ofori, Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, agrees it is time the Service was equipped with such a unit, which is usually a rapid deployment unit for critical response situations. And usually, it is the police that are called first, if there is any such threat. Coming up at midday, Joy News will be speaking to the Police Service on how far it has come in building such a unit, and why it has been lacking it all along. Story by Isaac Yeboah