Police officers in the Ashanti Region have made a startling public admission: influential personalities routinely call to secure the release of people arrested for illegally using sirens on public roads, leaving officers trapped between enforcing the law and protecting their own careers.
Assistant Service Superintendent (ASP) Awudu Abdul Razak of the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service in the Ashanti Region made the admission during a public engagement, lifting the lid on a systemic breakdown that has allowed siren abuse to spiral out of control across the region.
“You’ll arrest and they’ll know you arrested them. But you’ll be there, a call will come requesting that you release them. Will you say you won’t release? Are you going to say you won’t release the person?” ASP Razak said, explaining that officers who refuse the calls face direct victimisation.
The MTTD revealed that whenever persons are arrested for road traffic offences such as the unlawful use of sirens, influential persons call to request their release, a pattern that has contributed to a worsening situation across the region.
Under Ghana’s road traffic regulations, only designated emergency and security services are legally permitted to use sirens, among them the National Ambulance Service, the Ghana National Fire Service, and law enforcement agencies responding to active emergencies. The routine use of sirens by private citizens, business executives, and political associates to beat traffic is a criminal offence. Yet in the Ashanti Region, the practice has become so normalised that enforcement has effectively collapsed under the weight of elite interference.
The MTTD’s public lament points to a deeper governance problem: the selective application of the law based on social and political proximity. When police officers face professional consequences for upholding the law, the law itself becomes a tool of power rather than a standard applied equally to all citizens.
The MTTD has previously acknowledged that physical monitoring of unlawful siren use is increasingly difficult, and the department announced plans to deploy information and communications technology (ICT) devices to support enforcement, though implementation has remained slow.
The admission comes as the Ashanti Region’s police commands have drawn attention for both their integrity wins and their enforcement challenges in recent weeks, underscoring the uneven pressures officers face across the region’s diverse political and social landscape.
