FIGHTING CROSS BORDER CRIME...Security officials map out strategies (D/G Saturday May 16, 2009 BACK PAGE)

THE Upper East Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Alhaji Hamidu Mahama, has met with his counterparts from the neighbouring border towns of Bittou in Burkina Faso and Cinkasse in Togo to map out strategies to fight cross-border crime.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic at Bolgatanga, Alhaji Mahama said since cross-border crime was still a problem, there was the need for those in charge of security to dialogue regularly on how best to handle the situation.
He said the security officials from all the three sides discussed the need for them to effectively collaborate and find a modern way of fighting cross-border crime.
The security officials also discussed the need to check the proliferation of arms and ammunition at the border towns.
Alhaji Mahama said recent events in Bawku and other border towns gave the police cause to believe that some criminal elements were now taking advantage of the situation to rob people.
He said the police believed that those criminals were likely to run across the border, hence the need for security chiefs from Ghana to collaborate with their counterparts in Burkina Faso and Togo to work hard and expose those criminal elements.
He described the meeting as very successful and expressed the hope that the collaboration would be deepened to find common approaches to dealing with security challenges facing the three neighbouring countries.
The Upper East Region shares common borders with Burkina Faso to the North and Togo to the East of the country.