From the 1980s down to the 1990s, Odupon Kpehe, popularly known as Kasoa, in the Central Region, was a small village. But following the population explosion in Accra, leaving in its trail the scramble for human settlements, those who had acquired plots of land to build their future homes started moving towards the town.
Apart from the fact that plots of land at Kasoa, in those days were very cheap, almost all the lands in Accra itself had also been exhausted. Developers, therefore, had no option than to move to Kasoa, and because of its proximity to Accra, the town has today become one of the big human settlements in Ghana.
In fact, in a few years to come, the town will join with Winneba because of the rapid way it is developing. As a result of this development, criminal activities are also on the ascendency in the area. All the hard core criminals have moved to Kasoa, because of the abundance of ‘raw materials’ they can feed on. It is, therefore, not surprising that hardly a day passes without a report of armed robbery or pick pocketing being reported from the area.
Though the police are doing their best to handle the situation, it appears the sheer explosion in population is making it virtually impossible for the security agency to achieve their targets. It is on the basis of this that The Chronicle is appealing to the police administration to consider the possibility of creating a Regional Command for Kasoa. The current divisional status, in our view, is not enough to deal with the rising crimes rate being recorded in the town, which has now become a city.
We may not know the internal workings of the Police Service, but we believe regional status will come with the posting of more personnel to the area. Though crime has not been stopped completely in Tema, the fact that it has its own Regional Command has helped to ease the pressure that would have been brought to bear on Accra. Kasoa is now part of Accra, but personnel serving in this vast town are taking instructions from the Regional Commander who stays far away in Cape Coast.
This, obviously, will not help in fighting crime, because before reinforcement reaches the town from Cape Coast, the criminals would have finished executing whatever agenda they have, and leave the scene. We are aware that a new Divisional Command has been built inside the Millennium City for the police by the Church of Pentecost. This new structure, per our observation, can serve as a Regional Command if the Inspector General of Police (IGP) takes the bold decision to create the region.
The problem we anticipate is the bad nature of the road leading to the new Divisional Command. We admit that the road is in a terrible state, but we believe the government or the Ministry of Roads and Highways is not oblivious of this fact. As a matter of fact, construction of that particular road started a few years ago, but has been stalled. It is our contention that if the IGP and his team write officially to the government that they want to promote Kasoa to police regional status, and that they want the road leading to the Regional Command constructed, there is no way the government will turn down their request.
Residents of Kasoa are always complaining about insecurity, and the time has come for the police administration to think outside the box on how to assuage the fears of these residents. One of the ways, we insist, is the creation of a region for the area.
We should not sit down for the situation to get out of hand before steps are taken to deal with it. The time to deal once and for all the emerging crimes in Kasoa is now. There is no need to be paying lip service instead of confronting the problem head on.
The post Editorial: Kasoa needs a Police Regional Command appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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