‘You’re the worse IGP ever appointed’ – Captain Smart tells Oppong-Boanuh

• Captain Smart says former IGP is worse ever appointed

• He said he lied to the Police Officers that they will be receiving salary increment and it did not happen

• He noted that Police Officers buy their own uniforms

Captain Smart, the host of Onua FM morning show, has stated that former IGP, James Oppong-Boanuh, is the worse Inspector-General of Police ever appointed in Ghana.

According to him, the former IGP and the current government lied to the Police officers regarding their salary increment prior to the elections, “yet people are saying I should not tell him that he is the worse IGP ever appointed in Ghana.

“Let me tell you on authority that Oppong-Boanuh is the worse IGP ever appointed in Ghana. Oppong-Boanuh, wherever I stand I will tell you that, you are the worse IGP,” Captain Smart said on Thursday’s edition of his show.

Captain Smart challenged the former IGP to tell him what exactly he did before he was succeeded by Dr Akuffo Dampare as the acting IGP.

“Show me one thing that you did for the Ghana Police Service under your tenure as the IGP. You get the chance to sit on TV and radio and brag about how the Police Service will see an increment in the salary of its personnel and a whole IGP will allow politicians to use that as a basis of winning elections and afterwards the increment that they deserve does not come.

“Today, some Professor is saying that those who do such a job do not deserve 4% increment in salary. His wife is not part. Look, do you know the number of police officers that were killed just because they were working tirelessly to protect us, civilians, in the night when we are asleep? You have no idea; we have witnessed in this country how police officers are killed like fowls…”

He continued: “Police Officers use their personal savings in buying most of their uniforms, especially their boots which they wear to work. Today, a Ghanaian government cannot but a proper boot for the police officers…

“Today when they are increasing their salary, someone will sit somewhere and say that, they don’t deserve [it]. Today, police officers buy their own uniforms, the government cannot buy the uniforms for them and the police officers cannot say it…they buy their own beret…,” he stressed.

Captain Smart’s comments come at the back of some comments made by Prof Stephen Adei concerning salary increments for public sector workers.
Prof Adei was quoted to have public sector workers should have had no pay rise this year.

He indicated that no group of workers should have had any salary increase considering the fact that Ghana’s economy was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the country got plunged into an economic crisis.

On 18 August 2021, some aggrieved public sector workers demonstrated in the national capital, Accra, against the offer of 4 percent and 7 percent rise in their base salary for 2021 and 2022, respectively.

They were also not in favour of the 6 percent and 8 percent rise in the national minimum wage for 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Prof Adei in a reaction noted that rather than agitate, workers should count themselves lucky for the offer of 4 percent pay rise.

“… The people saying [the] 4 per cent [pay rise] is not enough; actually, to be honest, it should have been zero per cent. Yes,” he told the Class FM in an interview aired on Wednesday, 29 September 2021.

“The situation in the country is such that except that – I must qualify it – you cannot say zero per cent for them and other people get 70 per cent or get an increase.

“It should have been zero across the board because the message should have been sent that we are in a crisis, so, we can’t have ‘Monkey dey chop, baboon dey work,” he explained.

“The president has come out and yet, in Ghana, the good news is not good news. The president has said that all the increase which was recommended, he is not going to accept it; as well as his vice and his ministers, and you know, it was just a flash in the pan.

“He [president] gave the instruction right from the beginning and what he has done is that, still, automatically, the Controller and Accountant General paid it into his account so he was refunding it. But whatever it is, whether it is from the outcry [of Ghanaians] or not, if you are a leader, it’s a good example. It says that: ‘We are in difficulty and therefore, I’m going for zero’. Then the other people should know that their 4 per cent is actually higher,” Prof Adei said.

“But the parliamentarians should come out and say something quickly,” he stressed.