My disappointment with the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS)

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Dear Editor,
My disappointment with the
Police Intelligence and Professional Standards (PIPS)

I bought a piece of land at Bortianor in the Ga south district Assembly for my personal residential purpose. After completing the full payment of 8,000 GHC in October last year, I commenced work.on the land being sure I had the documents to the property.

A few days after commencing work, a woman approached me and introduced herself as Martha A. Annorbah, the owner of the next land to mine. She sounded very friendly and did not look troublesome. We exchanged greetings and she left a short while later.

Both of us kept working on our various pieces of land until one afternoon when some police officers, driving in a Ga South District Assembly vehicle, drove to the site with guns to stop the workers on my property. The policemen warned us to stop work immediately, refusing to talk to anyone on the site, including myself. They threatened to come and destroy every work we have done. In order to obey the police’s order, the mixed concrete for the project for the day got wasted. All effort to do some explanations and questioning proved futile. They, instead, requested that I came to their office at Weija STC. One of the police officers, Boston Lewis Abekah, could only tell me they were acting on the orders of Madam Martha A. Annorbah, and even while talking to me they were still taking more instructions from her on phone.

Out of fear, my workers stopped work immediately and left the site without taking their wages.

I thought this woman was just using the police to trample on my rights. I, therefore, reported this to the Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Bureau (PIPS). PIPS, instead of talking to their personnel and stopping them from going about threatening people with their guns, decided to make their office a court room; listening to cases and passing judgment. They requested for my land documents even when they confessed themselves that they could not differentiate between the papers. After going through the documents, they concluded that the agents who sold the land to me were criminals and that I should go back to deal with them (the agents).

Ironically, my plot of land is behind the fence of Madam Martha A. Annorbah. Our documents do not bear the same piece of land. This, PIPS was not able to substantiate, but passed a judgment.

As the complainant, I felt sad for the citizenry who are supposed to be protected by the police service. I wonder how professional the police intelligence and professional standards (pips) of the Ghana police service has been when they go round threatening people with guns. It was set up to receive and investigate complaints from the public about the conducts of police personnel. However, this was not what they seemed to have done for me. They neglected my complaint and rather tried to pass judgment on who is the rightful owner of the land. This, to me, is quite unfair and I am highly disappointed in them.


Maxwell Owusu Agyekum
Freelance Journalist
Youth and Human Rights, Ghana
mcobbinah@aol.com
Telephone number: 0284808280

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