Bagbin orders Parliamentary Committee to collate security-civilian brutalities

Speaker Bagbin directs Defence and Interior Committee to compile and submit reports by the Commission of Enquiries on Security-Civilian brutalities as of 1993.

The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin has directed, the inquiry set up by the government to look into issues of security-civilian brutalities across Ghana.

He said the reports presented to the House by the Commission or Committees of Enquiries set up by the government on security-civilian brutalities should pre-date 1993 to 2022 for consideration of the House.

This follows the consideration of the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence and Interior on July 1, 2021, regarding military-civilian brutality in Wa in the Upper West Region.

The Committee in its report to the House on Wednesday, June 1, 2022, recommended “that the State should take urgent steps to promptly and adequately compensate all the victims of the military brutalities in Wa.

Even though in the aftermath of the attacks the Minister of Defence paid the initial medical bills of the victims who were hospitalised. The gesture of the Defence Minister is commendable but should not absolve the State of its responsibility to adequately and promptly compensate the victims.”

The report presented by the Vice-Chair of the Committee, Mrs. Ophelia Mensah Hayford, further called for the swift prosecution of all the soldiers who engaged in the brutalities.

Commenting on the report, the Speaker took on the country’s security agencies and added that the House “will no longer tolerate Police brutalities. Parliament is the center of this democracy in Ghana. The concept is very clear. We will be forced to take stringent measures to curb this when it persists”, the speaker noted.

Having regard for the concerns raised during the debate on the report, the Speaker further directed the Committee to “consider all similar reports of inquiry on brutalities by security officials on civilians from January 1993 to date and report to the House.”