Ghana’s security not broken down - Stephen Amoah

Chief Executive Officer of the Micro Finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) Mr Stephen Amoah has noted that although crimes including killings of important personalities have happened in the country in recent times the security of the oil-producing West African nation cannot be said to have broken down.

He was speaking on TV3’s New Day on Wednesday October 14 in connection with the recent murder of the Member of Parliament for Mfantseman Ekow Hayford.

Mr Hayford was killed last Friday dawn when some suspected armed robbers attacked his convoy on the Abeadze Dominase-Mankessim road in his constituency. He was returning from a campaign trip.

Stephen Amoah told host Johnnie Hughes that “We need to tackle this issue from the base before we can see any results.”

He added “In every society, there’s something called social stratification and we can’t say we will protect everyone equally but at least efforts has to be made.”

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ambrose Dery has said 200 police officers have been deployed to protect Members of Parliament (MPs) following the gruesome murder of their Hayford on Friday, October 9.

Mr Dery, who is also MP for Nandom Constituency, made this revelation to members of the Parliamentary Press Corps after an in-camera session with MPs on Tuesday, October 13 to brief his colleagues on efforts the government is putting in place to protect them after the killing of Mr Hayford.

“Due to the retooling of the security agencies by President [Nana Addo Dankwa] Akufo-Addo, the country has more security agencies and security personnel available.

“So we have proposed that, between now and the end of the year, we are going to provide an additional 200 police personnel to be part of the parliamentary protection unit.

“We are making this arrangement to ensure that the unit attains the status of divisional police command to take care of the Members of Parliament as bodyguards.

“Ideally to get to where we want to get to means that, subsequently, we should have 800 police added so that each MP will also have security at home in the day and night,” he said.