Interior Minister justifies blowing ¢28,000 to hire private security

The Interior Minister has justified spending over ¢28,000 to hire private internal security at the ministry.

Putting the issue in context, Ambrose Derry explained that the remit of security hired was to deal with internal chores, locking doors within and ensuring that disasters such as fire do not affect the building.

“It is not for what we perceive to be the orthodox terms of security. The police who are outside the ministry provide cover for all the area within the wall,” he told Chairman of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday.

He added that “the issue of civilian to police is 1:848 and therefore if you take two members of the Ghana Police Service to be within the ministry to perform these petty roles, I daresay it will be an underutilization of an essential resource.”

Mr Dery’s comment is in response to a 2016 report of the Auditor General which expressed that payment to the Magnum Force Security did not provide value for money.

Daniel Domelevo observed that the service could have been provided by the Ghana Police Service at no cost.

According to him, the expenditure on the private security was a drain on the Ministry’s scarce resources since the whole of internal security apparatus was under the Ministry.

He urged management to rather rely on the Ghana Police Service to provide internal security for the Ministry.

But Ambrose Derry disagreed.

At the sitting, it was disclosed that in the past two night security officers were stationed inside the ministry’s premises.

But with the demise of one and retirement of the other, request for financial clearance to hire two others to replace them has been a challenge since 2014, the ministry said.

“It became necessary that as a drawback measure, we hire these internal security persons to keep the internal security. They have warded off a fire disaster in the past…they have the keys to the offices and can save situations like fire before it gets out of hand.

“They see if the lights are off in a particular office and in event of a fire they are those immediately responsible to respond in connection with the Ghana National Fire Service,” the ministry justified.

According to the Interior Minister, before one thinks that ¢28,000 is on the high side for such a service, “if you really want to think of having two police officers there, there is the opportunity cost to deal with.”

“What would those two officers be doing for the rest of the country? They certainly will be better engaged in serving the country out there.

Mr Dery added that the country is far away from the 1:500 civilian to police ratio and therefore pleaded that people see reason and make better use of the limited resources of the police service.