Ghana Police Begin Installing TraffiTech-GH Speed Camera Warning Signs Following Mahama Directive

The Ghana Police Service and road safety agencies have begun installing large advance warning signboards across key highways and urban corridors, alerting motorists to the presence of automated TraffiTech-GH speed cameras, in a move that directly responds to President John Dramani Mahama's call for transparency in the enforcement system.

Photographs from the installation exercise show police personnel and technical crews using heavy lifting machinery to mount large blue-and-yellow reflective gantries. Some of the newly introduced billboards prominently feature a camera icon alongside a red-ringed "80" km/h speed limit sign, with bold inscriptions reading: "24-hrs speed camera monitoring" and "Speed kills, kill it now."

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Alexander Kwaku Obeng, Director of Education, Research and Training at the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD), was captured in photographs alongside some of the signs bearing a 50 km/h speed limit.

Presidential Directive on Transparency

The signage rollout follows President Mahama's direct intervention earlier this month, when he urged the police and implementing partners to erect visible advance notices for the cameras. Speaking on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, the President emphasized that public notification was essential to the legitimacy of the enforcement system.

"All I will urge is that the police and those implementing TraffiTech should put signs showing where the cameras are, because that is one of the things you need to do if you are introducing this kind of innovation," Mahama stated . "You need to put signposts warning motorists that there is a speed camera ahead. I think that transparency is important."

The President also dismissed arguments that road infrastructure should be fixed before automated enforcement could be justified, pointing to international precedent. "The roads are not perfect in the UK, and yet they have speed cameras," he said, adding that children walking home from school were being "knocked down and killed or permanently injured" due to speeding .

Addressing Entrapment Concerns

The signage initiative addresses widespread criticism that emerged after TraffiTech-GH went live on November 1, 2026. Commercial transport operators and private motorists had argued that enforcing automated fines without visible warning signs amounted to entrapment, particularly given the absence of standardized speed camera signs in Ghana's existing road traffic regulations.

ACP Obeng disclosed last week that Ghana's road traffic regulations, which draw from the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, did not originally include a designated speed camera warning sign. "In it, there is no speed camera sign. It was not embedded," he said on Joy FM's Super Morning Show . Working with road engineers, the police have since developed a standardized sign to fill the regulatory gap.

How TraffiTech-GH Operates

Operated under the MTTD, TraffiTech-GH uses fixed, mobile, and radar camera sensors to capture speeding violations in real time. Once a vehicle exceeds the posted speed limit, the system automatically generates an Electronic Notice of Violation and dispatches an SMS alert to the registered owner's mobile phone, containing details of the infraction and the statutory fine.

The first phase of enforcement, which began November 1, focuses exclusively on speeding. Road safety officials have indicated that the ongoing installation of warning signs will be extended across major highways and urban arteries nationwide as authorities prepare to activate additional enforcement modules covering red-light jumping and illegal parking.

The system has already shown signs of behavioral impact. ACP Obeng said preliminary data indicated a sudden reduction in road crashes across the country since the system's introduction, with motorists reportedly paying closer attention to their speedometers .

Background: A Contentious Rollout

The TraffiTech-GH launch was not without controversy. In the days following its activation, fraudsters began sending fake traffic fine text messages to motorists, prompting police to issue public guidance that genuine notices originate only from the sender ID GPS-MTTD and never contain clickable links . Separately, five transport unions threatened a withdrawal of services over the system, though the planned action was suspended following discussions with government representatives .

The government has maintained that the system is a life-saving intervention rather than a revenue-generation tool, citing statistics that speeding contributes to 50 to 62 percent of road fatalities and serious crashes in Ghana .

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Background Note: The TraffiTech-GH system draws its legal authority from the Road Traffic Regulations under Legislative Instrument 2519, with fines ranging from 20 to 40 penalty units depending on the severity of the speed violation. Registered vehicle owners bear legal responsibility for violations captured by the cameras, regardless of who was driving at the time.