During his appearance before a parliamentary committee of inquiry on August 31st, COP George Alex Mensah, former director general (technical) of the Ghana Police Service, expressed concern over the low morale within the police service.
He attributed this to the management style of the current Inspector General of Police, George Akuffo Dampare, which has left many personnel dissatisfied.
However, COP Mensah clarified that despite his opinion of IGP Dampare’s managerial abilities, he is not involved in any plot to remove him from office.
The committee is currently investigating a leaked tape that allegedly contains discussions about the possible removal of the IGP by three police officers and the former northern regional chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Daniel Bugri Naabu.
“Dampare is not managing the police service well and the majority of police officers are not happy,” COP Mensah told the committee members. “You can call the police officers underground and they will tell you.”
“The tape that I heard today, there are so many things in that tape that I don’t remember and there are so many things that we discussed that are not on the tape. I’ve met Bugri Naabu four times and we have discussed many things some of them private things that I am not ready to discuss in public
“I had a meeting with Bugri Naabu but I don’t remember having any plan to remove the IGP because I don’t remove IGPs,” COP Mensah said.
During his appearance before the committee on Monday, Naabu disclosed that he was responsible for recording the leaked tape.
Naabu affirmed that the discussion took place in his office, located near the Osu Police Station, with three other police officers. He identified the voices on the tape as belonging to Commander Asare, COP Mensah, and Superintendent Gyebi.
Naabu informed the ad-hoc parliamentary committee that the officers conspired to remove the national police chief due to his actions, which they believed were not in the interest of the governing NPP and could lead to the party’s defeat in the 2024 elections. Naabu further stated that he recorded the conversation as evidence and presented it to the committee.
“The reason for recording this tape is that they are coming to tell me to go and tell the president [Nana Akufo-Addo] something… and it is either I don’t go to tell the president and then I and my party suffer for it and if I also go to talk to the president, it is good to tell him the right thing and since I cannot keep everything they were telling me at that point, it was very good to record, and I know the president, [if] I go and tell him something, and it turns [out] not to be true, next time he won’t give me respect,” Naabu said.
“I didn’t do it myself but I requested somebody who knows how to do the recording to come and do it for me. I didn’t use a phone I went to the mall and got this ordinary tape,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government has strongly refuted allegations of a clandestine scheme to oust the Inspector General of Police prior to the 2024 general elections.
“The government has no plan to sack the IGP and we are sure that nothing will be allowed to disturb the peace from now till 2024,” the Interior Minister Ambrose Dery said when the tape was leaked in July.
