The Accra Regional Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Afia Tenge has clarified that the laws regarding the arrest of people without face masks in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic are not clear enough to be strictly enforced.
In an interview with the media, Afia Tenge disclosed that, there many loopholes and unanswered questions that needed to be clarified, hence the inability of the police to enforce law on face masking.
She noted that, there is a massive disobedience to the directive, yet their hands are tired.
“. It is one thing coming up with a law, it is another thing enforcing it. We need clear guidelines on it, on how we are going to go about it. Even when we arrest them, where do we put them? Not knowing whether the person is a carrier or not?” she added.
Adding that, any arrest is on the discresion of the individual police officer, which could lack uniformity of the President’s directive.
Afia Tenge further cautioned the public to adhere to the president’s directives to largely save their lives and the lives of others from the pandemic.
As part of measures to curb the spread of the COVID -19, Executive Instrument (E.I. 164), was signed by President Akufo-Addo, per Section 6 of Act 1012, that “a person who fails to comply with the restrictions imposed under the Executive Instrument issued under subsection 1 of Section 2 commits an offense and is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not less than 1,000 penalty unit (GH¢12,000) and not more than 5,000 penalty units (GH¢ 60,000) or to a term of imprisonment not less than four years and not more than 10 years or to both.”
How honest was the police arrest of 40 people who violated the nose masking in Accra
However, DSP Afia Tenge disclosed that, the Police Service in Accra have raided a section of the city and arrested 40 people who were ot nose-masked so upon what grounds did the Police make those arrest?
Godfred Sey/ Ahotoronine
