18,000 convicts on Police database-Inspector General of Police

About 18,000 convicts have been imputed into the database of the West Africa Police Information System(WAPIS).

This move is to step up the fight against crime at the interagency level.

The said data according to the Ghana Police Service is being interrogated by investigative institutions in the country.

This was revealed in a speech read on behalf of the Inspector General of Police by the Director in charge of the CID, Mr.Ken Isaac Yeboah at the opening of a three-day Regional Training for selected Law enforcement officers, held in Accra.

Officers for the training were drawn from Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, and Liberia.

Furthermore, the acting IGP indicated that equipment had been deployed to stakeholders across the country by WAPIS.

The equipment includes scanners, computers, and UPS.

Ambassador of ECOWAS, Baba Gana, who was also present at the function, mentioned the lack of appropriate infrastructure for data collection, storage, and transmission as one of the challenges in fighting transnational crime.

“Most of the activities could not be accomplished within the project period as a result of bureaucratic obstacles in the operationalization process at the national level and the absence of national budgets to support the project, which also has been compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

The West Africa Police Information System (WAPIS) Programme is implemented by INTERPOL with funding from the European Union. It aims to strengthen information exchange and coordination among the region’s law enforcement agencies in the following ways:

• Enable police officers in West African countries to access critical police information from their national criminal databases and databases of countries across the region, thus improving the identification of criminals and supporting ongoing investigations.
• Improve analysis of the problems of transnational organized crime and terrorism facing the region and allow a better understanding of crime originating in, coming from, and transiting through West Africa.
• Allow greater police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters within the region, the European Union, and the rest of the world.

The program supports the efforts of national authorities and ECOWAS in improving the security of citizens in West Africa and is being implemented at three levels: national, regional, and global.