<<Print>>

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu has urged Ghanaians to be vigilant and security-conscious in their daily activities to make crime difficult for armed robbers.

He added that aside from the provision of logistics by the government to aid the operation of the security agencies to protect lives and properties in the country, Ghanaians must be ready to help the security agencies with valid information to make their work very easy.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Dr Henry Kokofu posited that Ghanaians must desist from flaunting their wealth and things which will entice thieves and armed robbers to attack them.

According to him, the citizens must find an alternative means other than their usual way of conducting themselves in order to make it difficult for criminals to track and harm them.

He said Ghanaians must be vigilant and security-conscious.

"We have to make stealing difficult for the thieves; we display a lot of things that interest armed robbers and thieves. The most important thing is that the security agencies need our help."

The government is doing its part by providing the logistics they need to operate with but if we give the security agencies everything without helping them with information and also become security-conscious, it will be difficult to curtail crime.

He, however, warned against the political interference as well as the involvement of high profile people in the work of the security agencies; thus, these people make it difficult for the security agencies to perform their duties to the fullest and thereby make some people get away with crime.

He again warned that the perpetrators of crime have no regard for any political colour, and encouraged the need for the collective responsibility of Ghanaians to help the security agencies with information that will help them to combat crime in the country.

“Criminals don’t have to identify the political parties of people before killing them and so it is our collective responsibility to fight crime. The people in the security agencies are human beings like us and their work requires information that we may provide them, and so if we don’t show interest and speed up with information, it will make their work very difficult,” he urged.

Counting the cause of crime rate in the country, Dr Kwabena Kokofu asserted that some people from troubled neighbouring countries are partly responsible for the hike in the crime rate in the country as they smuggle their way into the country to commit crime.

He added that some of the criminals from neighbouring countries also receive an invitation from their Ghanaian counterparts to come into the country to carry out the heinous crime together.

He, therefore, backed the claim of some security experts that the rise in the crime rate in the country is a result of the government fight against illegal mining [Galamsey] activities, but added that it is not an excuse for anyone to engage in other social vices as an alternative means of survival.

Watch video below