George Akuffo-Dampare has now been confirmed as the substantive Inspector General of Police at a ceremony in Accra today October 8, 2021.
Dr. Dampare has been in an acting capacity since the retirement of former IGP Oppong Boanuh in July this year.
Addressing the swearing-in, President Akufo-Addo urged the police service not to be appendages to the government but work for the country.
He said, “government has put in place measures to improve the quality of the police service and the welfare of police personnel and we will continue to do more in the coming years.”
“It is often said that the public is the police and the police is the public. The citizenry can only have confidence in the police service when its members are seen, to be honest, and enforce the law without fewer or favor.”
He added “your task as IGP during your term of duty is to establish the service that maintains the trust of the citizenry. It is in everybody’s interest that the police service conducts itself as a principled creditable instrument of accomplishing the executive duties of maintaining law and order in the state.”
“Governments in our body politics have term limits and in a multi-part democracy, parties win and lose power. It is good for the health of the nation that this should be so. And this is why the police service under your leadership should not tie its well being or otherwise to the fortunes of the ruling party of the day.”
The new IGP also pledged to work with colleagues to build a world-class police service that they will be proud of during their retirement.
He said, “…so that at the end of the day if we leave the service and we are passing by and we see the police doing an excellent job we will be proud and tell ourselves without anybody hearing that we also contributed and as a result of that we are seeing a different police service.”
“And our vision has been to be a world-class police institution and Mr president we are poised, we are focused in attaining that. We know it is not going to be easy, and our colleagues and I have made the decision that even if we are unable to take it to that destination, we at this time will position the organization towards that destination such that there will be no turning back.”
