Tema-Ghana, May 3, CDA Consult – Mr. Kwabena Otuo Acheampong, a Law Enforcement Officer said that “Operation Vanguard,” a joint military-police attempt to combat illegal mining in the country, was plagued by operational challenges.
He recognised trust and transparency as problems; while the police felt marginalised in operation planning, the military did not trust the police.
“The military feared that police would leak information about planned operations to their local counterparts.” “The police also believed that the lack of openness on the part of the military, which led operations, meant they had been compromised,” he stated.
In an interview, Mr. Acheampong, who is also a Security Expert discussed the impact of military police operations in the fight against illegal mining across the country.
He noted that in 2017, the government launched a military police operation in the country to combat illegal mining, highlighting that “the dynamics of Operation Vanguard were different from other joint military police operations.”
Another setback for Operation Vanguard, he said, was the separating of suspects apprehended for illegal mining from the exhibits associated with them.
According to Mr. Acheampong, while arrested persons were imprisoned at local police stations, their excavators, vehicles, weapons, cell phones, and other items were kept at Operation Vanguard camps.
“This defeated the purpose of the chain of custody and created accountability issues, culminating in the missing of several exhibits.” “This hampered prosecution efforts,” he acknowledged.
During Operation Vanguard, he stated that the military and police collaborated and trained together in Bundase, a military training site.
He did, however, congratulate the military and civil police for the numerous actions carried out in coordination to restore internal security.
He stated that anytime the police are overwhelmed by internal security issues, the military is generally called in to either help or, in most circumstances, to take over from the police, restore law and order, and then retire so that the police may continue their customary function of maintaining law and order.
Mr. Acheampong, who is also a police officer, remembered recent examples of such cooperation, including the Hohoe Disturbances in 2012, Operation Calm Life, and the Bawku Crisis.
According to him, instructors from both the military and the police department instructed officers and men on topics such as human rights, arrest, cordon, searches, and deployment procedures.
Following three weeks of pre-deployment training at Bundase, officers and men from the military and police were transferred to the Operation camps at Obuase, Tarkwa, and New Abirem.
According to the security expert, the military and police shared a kitchen, ate, slept, planned, and executed tasks together; “on the whole, Operation Vanguard, which was of a hybrid nature, was exceptional and a novelty with no precedent.”
