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SECURITY

KUMAWU: DISEC expresses worries over false distress calls

The Sekyere Kumawu District Security Council (DISEC) in the Ashanti Region, has expressed deep concern over the rising false night distress calls on the police about armed robbery attacks in the District.

Date Created : 6/21/2019 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Gideon Ebbah

Mr Samuel Addai Agyekum, the District Chief Executive (DCE) who also chairs the DISEC said the recent false calls received from some citizenry in the last 90 days, was suspected to be orchestrated by some gang of armed robbers living in the area.

The trick was being deployed by the miscreants ostensibly as a decoy to cover up their nefarious deeds and thus undermine the security of the area.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency at Kumawu after a DISEC meeting, the DCE said the security body would leave no stone unturned to crack down on the criminals to protect the peace in the area.

Though DISEC agreed that some of these calls might be genuine coming from well-meaning citizens with the intention of providing credible information, the act of crying wolf when there was actually no wolf, had the potential to threaten the area's security as genuine calls might be ignored for pseudo alarms, he stressed.

Citing the recent armed robbery attack at Wonoo on the Kumawu-Effiduase highway stretch on the 31st of May this year, he said the Police's spontaneous response that saved the situation, could have been missed in the event of the current repeated false calls.

The dicey situation, he said, needed to be handled cautiously and the DISEC would do everything to be able to identify genuine calls that needed swift security measures to be taken in collaboration with stakeholders in order not to jeopardize the security of the area, he added.

Mr. Agyekum said the DISEC was making moves to begin an intensified mass education on the issue in the area to help stem the trend.

The District's Fire Service Department is also being inundated with such false alarms and we really need to do something to stop the menaceâ€, he stressed.

The DCE urged the public not to only be vigilant but also to cooperate with the Police and DISEC in order to manage the situation well.

He said the DISEC was courting stakeholder support from the Traditional Authorities in the area, Local Council of Churches and the Muslim Local Council, Assembly Members, and Civil Society Organisations, as part of its security strategies to curb the menace.

The DISEC together with the traditional council has also sent an appeal to the central government to post more police officers to the area to augment the work of the only 13 police personnel working in the two sister Districts - Sekyere Kumawu and Sekyere Afram Plains.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Philip I. K. Asante, the Divisional Commander of the Sekyere East District who has additional oversight responsibility for the two Districts, said the situation was worrying, but assured of police's readiness to tackle the menace in a holistic and strategic manner.

He however urged the people to continue to volunteer credible and useful information to the police for swift action to be taken.

Police Superintendent Opoku Agyemang Prempeh, the Sekyere Kumawu District Police Commander commended DISEC and stakeholders for the readiness to support the police to handle and manage the situation efficiently and effectively.

He also urged the media to be circumspect and professional to confirm from the police such calls before publicizing them.