Member of Parliament for Wa West Constituency and a retired police officer, Peter Toobu Lanchene, has stated the budget allocation for the Ministry of the Interior is woefully inadequate considering the responsibilities of the Minister.
He noted that though the challenges of the country in the area of security is very huge, the budget for the Minister of Interior has 97% of it paying compensation and leaving just about 3% for goods and services.
This, he said, means people are being paid just to work but do not have and are not provided with the necessary tools to carry out their responsibilities.
Contributing to debate on the estimates for the Ministry of Interior last Friday in Parliament, the former Police Officer said, “For instance, if at about 10 pm a robbery case is reported 23 kilometres away and the police need to move, they require a vehicle but they don’t have because the supervising Ministry does not have enough to provide the logistics.”
“If they don’t have the tools to work, we will be paying them but they will do nothing. At the end of the year, we spend a lot of money and yet the country will remain insecure.”
Hon. Peter Lanchene cautioned that the Ministry is a very serious one and very huge with very significant agencies under its supervision hence inadequate allocation puts the country under very serious security threats.
He said, “Let’s look at the budget allocation for the Ministry in relation to the agencies under it. The Ghana Police Service is under the Ministry of Interior, the Ghana Prison Service, the Ghana National Fire Service, the Ghana Immigration Service, the National Disaster Management Organization and the Narcotics Control Commission.”
“Additionally, the Ministry has supervisory oversight responsibility for the following agencies; National Peace Council, Ghana Refugee Board, National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, and the Gaming Commission.”
According to him, security is a shared responsibility and Ghanaians are prepared to share the responsibility with the government to remain secure but stressed they are not willing to share the burden with self-inflicted debts.
He expressed concern that the rate at which criminals are returning back to jail is so high that the country needs to show concern at what is happening.
This, he said, is a reason why the Church of Pentecost has started building prisons to support the Ministry of Interior to ensure security of the country will not be compromised.
The Wa West legislator lamented that Ghana is not disaster ready looking at what is happening in the country.
According to him, the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) under the Interior Ministry requires to receive 3% from the Common Fund.
“As we speak, the government of Ghana is owing about GH¢32.7 million to NADMO and because government has not paid, the organization is not disaster ready; invariably the country Ghana is not disaster ready if a tragedy strikes,” he said.
The Interior Minister has been allocated GH¢5,119,500,000.00 for the year-ending December 2022.
