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Lockdown: 'Military being taken care of better than Police'

Lockdown: 'Military being taken care of better than Police'

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Today is exactly the tenth day into the 14 days lockdown directive issued by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in some parts of the country as part of measures in containing the spread of the deadly Coronavirus.

While there have been reports detailing agitations from health workers due to inadequate supply of PPEs to aid their work as frontline staff, the latest to join are police personnel assigned to ensure civilians adhere to the lockdown directives.

A close police personnel speaking to GhanaWeb in an exclusive interview has disclosed that the welfare of the Police personnel is being taken for granted. The source who wanted to be anonymous disclosed that comparing how their colleague military personnel are being taken care of, to that of the police, it clearly shows how their senior management does not put them first in all decisions.

Accomodation and transportaion

Touching on accommodation, the source told GhanaWeb that whiles all military personnel assigned for this partial lockdown have been camped at an undisclosed location, members of the Ghana Police Service move from their homes to work daily.

The purpose of the military camp according to the source, is to protect families of the military personnel who are at risk of contracting the deadly Coronavirus in course of their work.

“The difference between the police and the military is that, the military personnel are camped at an unknown location, they don’t pay for transportation when coming to work. Because they are camped, they move in their vehicles to work and go back to the camp when work is over. They are not allowed to go into their families, the reason is you might contact the virus whiles at post. You cannot go and infect your families, which is a very fair decision,” he reiterated

On the mode of transportation, the source explained that the military personnel are conveyed to and from directly from their camp base to their locations in their special vans. The case for the police is different, members are supposed to catch their buses only at vantage points.

The sourced added that their senior officers in higher ranks did not take into consideration the long-distance of personnel, who come from very remote areas. Citing examples, the source explained, “Unlike them, the police is different, it doesn’t matter where you stay. All you need to do is to come to work and go back home. If you contract the virus, you are running at risk because your family also, because you have the possibility of passing it to them. Which is not fair. Even with transportation, because it’s a partial lockdown and most trotro drivers and taxis are finding it difficult getting passengers, you know what happens.

A lot of these police personnel are coming from afar Dodowa, Kasoa, etc. Even in those areas, they have to walk for a distance to the stations before they can get cars. They say they are providing cars at vantage points, let’s look at members coming from Dodowa, their bus is at Adenta, which is very far from Dodowa. Depending on how they get transport to join the Adenta bus. Members at Kasoa board the bus at the toll booth area, which is also far from the Kasoa town, if you don’t get to the toll booth on time to catch the bus, then you will be running a big risk”

The source who sounded very disappointed in the higher ranks could not understand how they came to a decision of withholding the little GHC100 ration promised to them.

“All these have not been considered, all expenses were not considered. Then later, they are telling us that a day ration, one pack of food is equivalent to GHC100. That is the problem, the police are facing now”.

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Source: ghanaweb.com

Original Story on: GhanaWeb
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