According to him, his outfit had received information to the effect that some land owners in the two communities had resorted to using school-age children to guard their landed properties, thereby denying such children the opportunity to go to school.

He stated that the situation had forced the affected children to drop out of school to engage in such illegal activity, which posed a serious danger to their life, apart from depriving them of their education.

Inauguration

COP Ampah Bennin made the statement when he addressed a ceremony to officially inaugurate a new police station at Gomoa Dampase in the Gomoa East District in the Central Region last Tuesday.

The project, initiated by the acting chief of the town, Nene Narh Ohimeh, was fully funded by the community to improve security in the area.

The police commander, therefore, called on members of the community to protect the lives of the children by preventing them from becoming land guards due to the scramble for lands since such children together with their adult counterparts, wielded sophisticated weapons in their operations.

‘‘If care is not taken, these children will grow up to become a security threat to the nation if they have access to guns at their tender age,’’ he added.

Form committees

The regional commander called on communities to form neighbourhood watch committees to augment the efforts of the police administration in the fight against crime since effective policing was a shared responsibility.

He explained that crime was on the ascendency, and had become sophisticated, stressing that the police needed effective collaboration from the public, in particular, to reduce crime to the barest minimum.

The police commander appealed to the public to support the police to combat crime by resourcing them with logistics to make them effective in the discharge of their duties.

Land guard issue

The Chief Executive of Gomoa East District, Mr Benjamin Kojo Otoo, called on the police to deal with issues of land guards seriously since it was a security threat in the area.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Gomoa East, Mr Kojo Asemanyi, thanked the community for the project as it would boost the morale of the police to effectively police the area.