Work on Gomoa Pomadze Police Station begins
Work has begun on a community- initiated project to construct a new police station at Gomoa Pomadze in the Gomoa East District of the Central Region.
The project is being supported financially by the Gomoa East District and the Effutu Municipal assemblies, as well as the Pomadze and Asebu communities.
The project is to help improve security in the area due to recent armed robbery attacks on residents.
On September 2, 2013, a group of armed robbers attacked students of the Pan African Christian University College at their hostel which also served as residence for some police officers.
In the course of the incident, a police patrol team that was notified and on its way to the scene, mistakenly took two police officers, one of whom was taking a colleague who had been injured in a private car to the hospital to be the
robbers who were trying to escape and shot at them, killing them instantly.
The chief of Gomoa Pomadze, Nana Apata Kofi V, who was worried about the development, organised a stakeholders meeting which was attended by officials of both Gomoa East and Effutu assemblies, opinion leaders and members of the security agencies to find lasting solution to the robbery cases in the area.
At the end of the meeting, Nana Apata Kofi released a parcel of land that had been earmarked for a shopping mall for the construction of a police station to help improve security in the town.
The sod-cutting for the commencement of the project was done last Saturday during the celebration of the Akwambo festival of the chiefs and people of the area.
In his address, Nana Apata Kofi said that the town was growing at a faster rate and the absence of a police station on the stretch of the road enabled criminals to harass and rob residents of their belongings.
He lauded the police administration for mounting a barrier in town since the robbery incident occurred, adding that the move had helped to increase police visibility in the area which had brought crime to the barest minimum.
He announced that he had also released 20 plots of land to the police administration towards the construction of decent apartments to accommodate the police officers who would be deployed to the town when the project was completed.
The Director-General of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rev. David Ampah Bennin, who represented the Inspector General of Police, lauded the community for the release of the lands.
He appealed to the public to financially assist the police service towards the provision of accommodation for police officers since the government was overstretched financially to deal with the challenges confronting the service.
The Gomoa East District Chief Executive, Mr Isaac Kingsley Ahunu-Armah, said the assembly would commit more resources towards the completion of the project, adding that the assembly had so far provided GH¢20,000 towards the construction of the police station.