A Civil Society group Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) has proposed that we install body cameras on officers who are currently taking part in the lockdown duties.
The group believe this will help the authorities know exactly what transpires between officers and civilians on a daily basis.
This comes after several videos surfaced online alleging how some officers of the military and police are maltreating civilians.
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Programme Officer of CDD-Ghana, Paul Mensah Abrampa, says this move if implemented will help the country to a large extent.
“In abnormal times such as this, you expect some of these clashes to happen because the directive for a lockdown was abrupt and we could not have enough time to put in place contingency measures. But being a civil society group and having monitored certain situations, we see it proactive to give our security officials body cameras. We are also aware that the security officers come from diverse backgrounds so no matter how strict the commanding officer is they will be people among them who will go wayward. I listen to the Military command and even though they debunked videos going round they accepted one and have recalled the officer.”
The Ghana Police Service in 2019 received some over 3000 body cameras to be used by personnel.
The body camera is to enhance police transparency and accountability.
Body cameras are small-lensed devices, often worn on an officer’s chest to capture images. It has a microphone to record sounds and internal storage for data or footage for later review and analysis.
Today marks Day 3 of the 14 days government partial lockdown. A number of civilians have clashed with security officials for failing to obey the directive.
Ghana has so far recorded 195 COVID-19 cases with the death toll at 5.
