Security personnel living in death traps

Isaac Yeboah Jul - 14 - 2013 , 13:47 5 minutes read

Lack of decent accommodation for the security services in the Western Region is said to be a great distraction for personnel and their families who have no peace of mind to focus on their core duties.

The region is not only resource rich, it also hosts commands of all the security agencies - the Ghana Army, the Ghana Air Force, Ghana Navy, Ghana Police Service, Prisons and Immigration Services as well as sea and air ports.

However, officers with the security agencies are stressed due to the limited accommodation to house thousands of officers and men as well as their families to enable them have the peace of mind to protect national installations and ensure the safety of life and properties in the region.

This according to some personnel in the security agencies who spoke to the Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity, was so demoralizing and sometimes makes them regret ever enlisting in their respective services.

Those living in barracks have very small cubicles dotted with dangerous cracks repaired from time to time at their own expense, and those who cannot afford are in structures that are almost collapsing.

At the moment, the abandoned railways single cubicle quarters, built in the late 1920s is housing thousands of police personnel with ranks from constable to chief inspectors in various parts of the metropolis.

A good number of the structures have become death traps to the occupants and their families, including spouses and children.

As a regimented institution, the occupants say they have no say but quietly put up with the situation, which to them was a great source of worry.

When the Daily Graphic visited one of the settlements at Effiekuma, it was evident how most of the structures suffered from erosion and are virtually hanging, with occupants having to climb no less than eight stairways from the grimy ground to access their rooms.

That aside, because the materials used in the construction of the building was laterite and has only cement foundation which has seriously been affected by erosion, it peels off at will and mothers have to be alert to protect their children especially during raining seasons.

Worse still, they have no kitchens.

Daily Graphic correspondent Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, investigating the sad accommodation situation said he witnessed a harrowing incident where the wife of chief inspector of police who was preparing the family’s evening meal under a makeshift structure made up of palm fronds, had to abandon the meal due to a late afternoon downpour.

The occupants have no private toilets and bathrooms and provide makeshift facilities on their own. In the circumstances, wives and female officers have to bath under the cover of darkness – it’s a dawn to dusk affair.

Two disused communal pit latrines for males and females are located in the middle of the dilapidated structures and direct their stench freely into the rooms of the personnel.

The situation is no different at another location called Police Reserve, Kru-Quarters where the same railways facility housing the officers have developed deep cracks and pose a serious threat to the lives of the occupants.

The story of the other sister agencies, Ghana Navy, Ghana Prisons Service and Ghana Immigration Service were not different, as the naval ratings had to rent accommodation from their own pockets.

Some landlords in parts of Sekondi are even reluctant to rent out their premises to Navy rating, claiming they do not have enough to pay for rent and utility bills.

Some of the Navy personnel told the Daily Graphic they did not even want their families to visit them because their houses are not habitable and that it embarrasses them.

Parts of a structure to provide proper accommodation for the ratings which was started around 2008 at Kweikuma near the Sekondi High Court, is being worked on while the rest has been taken over by weeds.

At the 2nd Battalion Infantry and the Takoradi Air Force Base, there are extensions to every building, ostensibly to create additional space to house increasing relatives.

Only last week at Fijai, senior prisons officers and their families were embarrassed as a frustrated landlord locked up their homes due to unpaid rent.

It is unclear why the state spends so much money to rent private properties for the security agencies when decent accommodation could be built from those high rate rents.

Some service commanders on transfer are sometimes housed in hotels between six months and two years at huge cost. The regional police commander’s residence has never been occupied after its first renovation in 2005.

It emerged that some of the service commanders who were not comfortable with living in costly hotel accommodations while their men struggled in makeshift structures moved out of the hotels on moral grounds.

So much for self-esteem and human motivation. Neither the personnel nor their spouses are happy; their children have no space in the main building for academic work as they are left in the open to study among mosquitoes. Sleep also comes at a discomforting cost.

It is worthy of note though that some effort has been made by the police administration and the army to create more rooms for the officers and men. So far however, they have not been enough. View more photos here.