Ghana’s police chief has ordered banks to provide armoured vehicles for transporting cash or risk losing the use of police escorts.

The move follows an attack on an unarmoured cash-in-transit van on Monday that resulted in the death of a police officer and a hawker in the capital, Accra.

The armed robbers got away with an unspecified amount of money.

Last year, the Association of Bankers in Ghana agreed to phase in armoured bullion vans by 2023.

But James Oppong-Boanuh, the inspector general of police, said banks now had until the end of the month to comply.

The central bank had said in September that it was considering using helicopters to transport cash because of frequent attacks on cash-in-transit vans.