The Interior Minister-designate, Ambrose Dery, has disclosed that police personnel can now access a 10 per cent kids’ allowance to enhance the social wellbeing of serving personnel and their families.
Mr Derry was speaking at the opening ceremony of ‘Policing Psychological Well-Being’ workshop for senior police officers in Accra and Tema on Tuesday.
According to him, the 10 per cent kids allowance programme commenced in January 2021, and is accessible to all police personnel across the country.
He expressed excitement about the programme, saying the social well-being of police officers is dear to the heart of the President. He also added that such holistic measures are very important in motivating the personnel and enhancing overall performance.
The Minister-designate lauded the police administration for mainstreaming mental health into the police training courses and setting a counselling unit to provide counselling services to the personnel.
Mr Derry urged officers not to be dismissive of some of the things that come on their way. He added that police officers must also be prepared as they get near to their retirement age.
The four-day workshop, which is a collaboration between the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Psychological Association, is anticipated to tackle issues of mental health of senior police officers across the country.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), James Oppong-Boanuh, speaking at the event, noted that the trend of suicide among serving personnel is becoming worrisome. He said there was therefore the need for the police administration to invest resources into both physical and psychological wellbeing of employees to curb such bizarre incident in the service.
Welfare improvement
Mr Oppong-Boanuh insisted that since the welfare of personnel is paramount in developing the Service, the Police administration has set up a counselling unit to address the grievances of the personnel to avoid suicides.
He noted that recent incidents of suicide among officers are worrying, and the counselling unit would curb the menace through a speak-out initiative of the service.
He therefore advised personnel to be bold enough to air their grievances and challenges to colleagues and approach the counselling unit for services.
The Inspector-General noted that training in mental health has been main-streamed at all levels of police training, and variety of skilled and resourced persons will be made available to provide training on retirement preparation, welfare management, among others, for the benefit of officers.
Mr Oppong-Boanuh also urged all personnel to adhere to the hygienic protocols of Covid-19 and make themselves available for the vaccination exercise that is ongoing.
