Security for MPs ‘totally unnecessary’

Financial analyst Sydney Casely-Hayford has said the provision of state security for Members of Parliament is completely unnecessary.

He said unlike some personalities such as the President and heads of the Electoral Commission, the Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), among others, the work of parliament does not involve danger that would require protection of lawmakers.

Speaking on Citi FM’s Big Issues Saturday February 13, 2016, he said of parliament: “…The institution is not a dangerous institution, it’s not an institution that’s creating danger. This is an institution that is creating a semblance of civility, not danger.”

Mr Casely-Hayford’s comments centred on the debate over the need for security for legislators following the murder Tuesday February 9, 2016 of Abuakwa North MP, J.B. Danquah-Adu at his Shaishie residence at dawn.

But Mr Casely-Hayford insisted MPs did not need state protection, arguing further that many would need such guards for reasons other than their safety.

“I don’t agree with parliamentarians who say that now they have to have protection. Now what they want now…is a soldier man holding a bazooka with another car following them wherever they go, another car they have to fuel, so, which means, they get double petrol vouchers running all over the country, turning on sirens and running around the county saying that this is their security man. And then they will be sending their security man…and they will be sending their security officers all over the way to go and collect bankye (cassava) and plantain and all kinds of things from different places on the grounds, that ‘this is my security officer I have asked him to come for four bunches of bankye (cassava),” he emphasised.