Weekend Today’s investigations have shown that some vehicles belonging to the Ghana Police Service that need minor repairs were rotting away in some public parking yards and private mechanic shops in the capital city, Accra.
Our investigations further revealed that the grounded vehicles, if not repaired, will continue to deteriorate in their economic value as long as there was rising depreciation due to their long stay without maintenance.
Most of these abandoned police vehicles which had 2003 and 2013 registration license plates embossed on them were Peugeot cars.
The vehicles were either damaged in unclear circumstances or had no tyres while others too had their bumpers damaged, windscreens broken, and faulty car batteries which could be easily be fixed.
Sources at various mechanic shops where these vehicles had been abandoned told this paper that anytime the police cars were involved in any accident, they were dumped there without anybody from the police service coming for them.
According to the sources, some of these vehicles had been at the mechanic shops for more than three years.
When asked why those vehicles were left to rot, there was no proper explanation why they were not repaired, and taken back to their respective police stations.
Interestingly, a visit by our reporter to some of the shops last Wednesday revealed that most of the parked police vehicles were being used as sleeping place by apprentices of the shops.
For instance, at Odorkor Official Town, two of the police vehicles were found completely abandoned.
And these vehicles were being used as drying lines during the day and a tavern in the night.
A resident of the area told Weekend Today that the vehicles have been there for years.
“You can see they have removed some parts of the cars but when they were brought here everything was intact,” the resident, who gave his name as Asomani, said.
At Kaneshie near Citadel Building, one of the vehicles was seen abandoned with some of its parts removed.
Another place where our reporter saw an abandoned white Peugeot police vehicle with registration number ER 1813-12 was Labi Avenue along the Kpeshie Street near Darkuman Police Station.
Weekend Today was told that occasionally the vehicle was washed since it served as a sleeping place for some residents in the area.
Meanwhile a source at the Police Headquarters has assured the public that the matter will be taken up.
Some of the abandoned vehicles were among the over 600 fleet of vehicles acquired by government for the Ghana Police Service between 2002 and 2003.
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