The Youth Employment Agency (YEA) in collaboration with the Ghana Police Service (GPS) on Monday 5th December 2022 held closing ceremonies simultaneously at the five Police Training Institutions in the country to climax the recruitment of some five thousand (5,000) Community Protection Assistants (CPAs) who have successfully completed their training programme.
These five thousand (5000) Beneficiaries form the first batch of fifteen thousand (15,000) young men and women who are being recruited across the country to assist the police in community security. The CPAs Trainees were taken through subject areas including g Community Policing, Traffic Management, Client Care, Criminal law and the Criminal procedure. Others were Criminal investigation and Preservation of Evidence, Human Rights, Basic Officer Skills, Public Order Management.
The rest were Crime Prevention Methods, Basic Education on Terrorism Domestic Violence, Ethics and Code of Conduct for Law enforcement Officials etc. The outstanding ten thousand (10,000) youth representing the next two batches of the young men and women are awaiting to have their turn of the training programme. At a colourful ceremony at the National Police Training School (NPTS) in Accra to symbolically climax the day, some One Thousand Five Hundred and Twenty -Five (1525) CPAs Beneficiaries drawn from the Western, Central and Greater Accra regions passed- out after an intensive training programme.
In his opening remarks the Commanding Officer of the NPTS, Chief Superintendent of Police Mr. Samuel Asiedu Okanta, described the training programme as a success due to the manner the trainees conducted themselves and the fact that most of the trainees had previous experience and knowledge about the CPAs work. In his words of advice, he entreated the graduating personnel to be disciplined at all times and endeavor to be civil in their dealings with members of the public. “You are to assist the Police to maintain law and order and win the hearts and minds of people whom we are mandated to serve with honour and integrity. You should respect and protect human dignity, maintain and uphold human rights of all persons you will come across in the course of performing your duties as CPA personnel” he explained.
He reminded the CPAs of the vision of the Ghana Police Service to become a world class Police Service capable of delivering planned, democratic, protective and peaceful service up to the standards of international best practice. He therefore challenged them, in the face of scorn or ridicule from the public, to maintain them calm composure and always ensure whatever they did as CPA was legal, professional and conformed to international best practices. The Commanding Officer noted that Policing was a shared responsibility and therefore entreated the public to co-operate with the CPAs and Members of the GPS to furnish them with the necessary information which would help the police to arrest criminals and miscreants who try to disturb the peace of the larger majority in our democratic dispensation.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Operations at the YEA,Alhaji Bashiru Ibrahim, noted that the day could be termed as a mission accomplished because it was in consonance with the core mandate of the Agency to create jobs for the youth. He reminded the youth about their description in the concept paper as CPAs and not mainstream Police personnel but with responsibility to assist the police at the community level. He explained that since Community policing was the knowledge impacted to them, they were expected to hold on to that role and serve as good ambassadors of the Agency.
He however, cautioned that the Agency would not hesitate to dismiss any CPA who misconducted himself or herself in the course of discharging their duties by arrogating to themselves status of police officers and officer ranks thereby misleading the public. He said such conduct was unacceptable and went on to cite an example of a CPA who made such false representation about himself to people in the area where he had been deployed to assist the police. He urged the CPAs to comply with the rules and regulations governing their training at the NPTS to open windows of opportunities for them in future recruitments into the mainstream service.
He announced a 40% upward adjustment in the monthly allowance paid to the CPAs and assured them of regular and uninterrupted payment of their allowances from next year. He also hinted that in line with the vision of His Excellency the President to address youth unemployment, the Agency was poised and committed to that vision and had already taken steps with recruitment drive into the traditional modules.
Aside from the 15,000 CPAs, he cited examples of 6,000 youth into the Community Health Workers (CHWs) module, training some 2,000 for the Prisons Office Assistants Module, some 3,000 youth being considered for Fire Assistants Module, over 700 youth to be engaged nearly next year as Artisans in the road construction space and hoped to recruit at least 37,000 youth, in total, before the end of 2023.
He explained further that the Ekumfi Juice Factory and the Komenda Sugar Factory were some areas the Agency had begun talks to enter into partnerships to create jobs for the youth in those communities and beyond.
