The Director-General in the Ministry of Local Government in Torit State is calling for collective efforts for the protection of civilians.
Mustafa Albino Zachariah says his ministry will ensure that transparency and openness is in place when giving information to concerned authorities, Emmanuel Radio reports.
He says the ministry will soon form community policing to create relationship between the societies and police force.
Albino reveals that the state ministry had already set a plan to give mobile phones to the community policing to share information as a way of protecting citizens.
‘We are in the process of forming the community policing and community and police relation and has a plan to give some mobile phones there is one police focal person who will receive their calls they connect with him and initially before doing all these we have started with the chiefs in the block if they see any abnormal movement in the block they have to call the police and they will roughs to the place of the crime I think this is one of the mechanism that we have started’, he discloses.
The Director-General says the state government will ensure that citizens are free to share information for the betterment of communities in the state.
Police Spokesperson in Torit State, Matthew Ochan Jacob, says they are training people to be committed for the information to go in the right channel.
He calls on the people to have trust in order to protect themselves from any kind of information shared.
‘We are training people the first of all in the community you are there to protect yourself you must have a trust first and the commitment all of us have make commitment then all the information will follow in the direct the way direct to the police and we all know how to connect information”. he reveals.
A member of Torit State Association of Persons Living with Disabilities, Patricia Laduma, calls for massive awareness to communities to enable them to know their rights to share issues in their areas.
‘We need to protect the citizens not only in may be in the law but in what happen to the community we need to empower them through the workshops training them so that they know their rights we attend the training we attend the workshop for example now people in the village they don’t know their rights though things happen to them they continue being in that problem so we need to empower them so that they know their rights and then you have freedom of saying your problem out through the training I think we shall protect our citizens’, she explains.
The lady says protecting people needs a heart of nationalism so as to be transparent when reporting the information.
The officials were speaking during the panel discussion at Radio Emmanuel on Wednesday.