Gov’t cuts down on salaries of CIDs

Incontrovertible information gleaned from the headquarters of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) indicates that the salaries of personnel have been slashed down contrary to the announcement by the Inspector General Police (IGP) that his subordinates have had upward adjustments as a result of the new wages and salary structure – the Single Spine Salary.

The news of “salary readjustment”, as the Police hierarchy put it, is creating uneasy tension within the service resulting in several secret meetings being held by the personnel to strategise on possible ways of presenting a strong protest that would not be in line with workers’ picketing in such circumstances.

The irony, according to the personnel who spoke anonymously to the paper, is that neither the government nor the police administration is prepared to offer cogent explanation as to the exact motive[s] behind the scraping of parts of their meagre salaries in the face of the ever increasing high cost of living in Ghana.

A meeting which was cobbled together by the administration and addressed by DSP Kwesi Fori -head of Public Relations Department of the Ghana Police Service – ended in chaos and unresolved.

However, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Cephas Arthur told Today that the Inspector General of Police, Paul Tawiah Quaye, met with the aggrieved CID official yesterday on the issue and believed an amicable solution had been found.

The personnel, habouring deep bitterness about the unfolding events, stated that the decision to slash their salaries was carried out without prior consultation and was done discriminately to affect only the personnel of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

“You see the IGP and his people are envious of the CID and that is why they cut our pay and increase theirs,” said an angry officer, pointing out that “the administrative procedures were subverted in carrying out the decision.”

“There was no signal that details the decision to cut down on our salaries,” the source said, stressing that “it is assumed that the reduction was not tabled appropriately.”

Some of the officers maintained that if the decision to slash the salaries of the CID was arrived at a “regular” police meeting there would have been a signal to all the units of the service.

A check by the paper confirmed the allegation by the personnel. The salaries of the CID have been drastically slashed down.

In a particular instance, our investigations showed that clothing allowance for the CID has almost been scrapped off.

“This unacceptable action taken by the leadership of the Police Service, will lead to low morale of the CID personnel, who are already reeling under heavy work schedule,” a fuming CID officer told Today.

A check from our source at the police administration shows that about two-thirds of the clothing allowance of CID officers has been scooped out of their salaries leaving them with a tiny fraction to buy clothes and other unofficial responsibilities, such as paying lorry fares for suspects when going to courts and also telephone bills.

It is expected of every CID personnel, as per work ethics, to dress “very smart” since they are the eyes of the core functions of policing in the country.

An officer told the paper that they are even enjoined to wear suit whenever they are going to court so that they would look almost like lawyers.

This code of dressing imposes a financial obligation on the CIDs and for which reason they are given a token to enable them dress in a presentable manner.

Additionally, experts say that though it is normal for every human being to dress unique, the CID has an intelligence connotation attached to their dress code because they “have to dress to look neat so that they would be able to disguise themselves since they are agents of national security.”

“Nowhere in modern policing should investigative officers be seen in tattered clothes,” they stressed.

A cursory appraisal carried out by the paper on the work load of the CID shows imbalance of responsibility regarding task performance amongst various sections of the service.

Police investigators carried out tasks that uniform personnel also do. For instance, the snap checks in the evenings. During these activities, the CID personnel are obliged to wear uniform which, certainly, exposes their cover to the public as secret officers.

This is a clear case of over stretching CID personnel due to inadequate manpower which the Ghana Police Service is facing.

Those police CIDs, who carry out night duties, are expected to go back to work the next morning and prepare their suspects for court while their uniform counterparts take the compulsory day-off.