Ghana is set to deploy 200 police officers to serve as guards to Members of Parliament (MPs) till the end of the year, the government said on Tuesday.

The officers will operate under the Parliamentary Protection Unit, according to the country’s Interior Minister Ambrose Dery.

He told members of the Parliamentary Press Corps after an in-camera session with MPs that under the new arrangement every MP will be entitled to a police officer as a bodyguard.

Already some 75 MPs who are serving as Ministers and Deputy Ministers under the current government have their guards at home and work.

But Mr. Dery at the press briefing further disclosed that plans are underway to provide 800 additional police officers to protect the homes of the MPs.

“Due to the retooling of the security agencies by President 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.”

The Minister was summoned by the House following the killing of Mfantseman MP, Ekow Quansah Hayford.

Mr. Hayford was shot dead on Friday by some unknown assailants on the Abeadze Dominase–Abeadze Duadzi–Mankessim road.

The MP and some executives of the NPP were returning from a campaign trip when the incident occurred.