The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr James Oppong-Boanuh, has asked Association of Bankers to provide fortified armoured vehicles for carting currencies by the end of June, this year.
Failing to comply with the directive, he said, the Ghana Police Service would withdraw its personnel from escorting unapproved vehicles.
Mr Oppong-Boanuh issued the caution in a statement signed by Superintendent of Police (Supt) Sheila Kessie Abayie-Buckman, Public Affairs Director of the Ghana Police Service, in Accra, yesterday.
The IGP has also directed the Director-General of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Commissioner of Police (COP) Isaac Ken Yeboah, to take over investigations into Monday’s robbery attack at Adedenkpo, near James Town, Accra, which led to the killing of a policeman and a woman, injury of a driver and bolting with money from a bullion van.
The statement said preliminary investigation has show that unidentified armed men on a number of motorbikes crossed the bullion van, which was on a pay/collection errand at about 11 am and shot at the policeman, who was on escort duty on the van, killing him instantly.
It stated that the armed men also fired sporadically in the air and on the driver, who suffered gunshot wounds and was responding to treatment.
The statement said “a hawker was also killed by the armed men when one of two women on the bullion van stepped and run towards the deceased seller’s direction. Both women on the van, tellers of Mon-tran, escaped unhurt, but were taken to the hospital to be treated for trauma. Crime scene experts have already visited the scene of crime and are going through the necessary procedures.”
The Ghanaian Times reported in its June 14, 2021, issued, that gunmen killed a policeman, identified as Constable Emmanuel Osei of the Special Weapon and Tactics (SWAT) and a woman, injured two others, after they (robbers) attacked a bullion van at Adedenkpo, in a daylight robbery.
The robbers reportedly four in number on three motorcycles were said to have broken the padlock on the van with registration number GT8592 W shot and killed the armed policeman, who was escorting the vehicle, made away with his service rifle and bolted with unspecified amount of money.
A mother of four, identified as Efua Badu, was also hit by a bullet from the armed robbers in her room. The bodies of policeman and Badu have been taken to the Police Hospital mortuary.
BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI
