The Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent Cephas Arthur, has said the delay in concluding the trial of officers involved in the recruitment scam that hit the service in 2015, is because of the number of witnesses being called to testify.<\/p>\n
According to him, in order to be fair, indicted persons have been allowed to invite witnesses to testify for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy it has taken much time is because this is somebody\u2019s right, somebody\u2019s life and you must give hearing to him. If the person is calling as many witnesses as possible, you don\u2019t truncate it because you don\u2019t know which of the witnesses is going to make his case for you. The defendants also keep on inviting witnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”YnEn82JTUBIG4SJb5ly2w4hZzB1vsOlt”]He said \u201cas I speak, on authority, between the two of us, I happen to be a witness to the defendant and I was called only last week. These are some of the reasons why it has delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Police service was hit by a recruitment scam in June 2015 during which over 500 people were given recruitment letters after allegedly paying between GH\u00a21,500 to\u00a0 GH\u00a22,500 and were asked to report at the training depots.<\/p>\n
The Police during its investigations arrested three men for their alleged involvement in the scam including the Service\u2019s Director-General in-charge of Human Resource, COP Patrick Timbilla.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the dockets indicting the officers have been forwarded to the Attorney General\u2019s department for advice.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong> on Thursday, Superintendent Cephas Arthur said eight months after the docket was sent, \u201cwe are still waiting for advice.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the Police were also charged to resort \u201cto our internal justice system and try the officers involved.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs we speak, it is the trial that has delayed the process\u2026Last week I paid a visit to the trial and from the things I saw; from the adjudicating officers, panel putting things together, we are just at the end of the process,\u201d he assured.<\/p>\n Recruitment scam is an indictment on Police Service<\/strong><\/p>\n Deputy Minority Spokesperson on Defense and Interior in Parliament, Major Derrick Oduro had earlier said the recruitment scam is an indictment on the Police<\/strong><\/a><\/span> Service.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m greatly surprised because in March, same scam happened, and some of us were asking of an extended investigation to involve a whole lot of people. Now the Police administration insisted that they could do it to forestall future occurrences, and\u00a0 it has happened again.\u00a0This time the amount collected from the victims were higher than whatever that happened in March. This is very serious,\u201d he intimated.<\/p>\n Police begin recruitment ahead of November polls<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile the Ghana Police Service has commenced processes to recruit new officers<\/a><\/strong><\/span> into the service, six months to the crucial November 7 general elections.<\/p>\n The exercise has suffered some setback due to the\u00a0acquisition of voucher for the the electronic application form but the Police has called for calm<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin A. Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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