The Ghana Armed Forces, GAF says appropriate sanctions will be meted out to the soldier who maltreated a resident of Kasoa for flouting the Covid-19 lockdown directive.
The Commanding Officer for the 64 Infantry Regiment of the Ghana Armed Forces, Lieutenant Colonel Appah said efforts are being made to find the officer.
Some videos making the rounds on social media and sighted by Prime News Ghana reveals that some military personnel who are part of the joint security task force, Operation Covid Safety are seen maltreating persons found flouting the Covid-19 lockdown directive.
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The lockdown directive announced by President Akufo-Addo took effect from March 30, 2020, in the quest to prevent the spread of the Covid-19.
The directive imposes restrictions on movement but gave exemptions to some institutions and also Ghanaians are allowed to access essential services like banking services and buying of food and water.
The directive took it backing from the recently passed Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020, Act 1012 which gives the President the power to restrict movements in the country pursuant to Article 21 of the 1992 Constitution.
Section 6 of the Imposition of Restrictions Act, 2020, Act 1012 prescribes the offence and punishment for breaches and this does not include the forms of punishment being meted to some persons arrested by some military personal seen in the video.
Some of the persons are made to squat, whiles others are made to crawl on the ground with their bare hands as a punishment for flouting the directive.
Before this, Operation Covid Safety assured Ghanaians that it is a humanitarian operation therefore the security personnel will not intimidate anyone. However, the content in the videos appears to be contrary to the assurances given by the Military and Police high command.
Reacting to the videos in a radio interview, Lt. Col. Appah said it will be a daunting task searching for the erring officer because he was hooded in the video and the area the video was taken from had about 50 uniformed personnel stationed there.
“I saw it [the video]. I want to believe [it is one of my men] because when I look at the background, it looks like our area… The soldier was wearing a hood and it is difficult to identify him in the video. Incidentally, our area is a reserved place where we have our headquarters. We have about 40 to 50 soldiers there. So it is difficult to identify which soldier did that. But I’m still looking for him to find out why he did that and give appropriate sanctions,†he said.