200 police officers deployed to protect MPs – Interior Minister

Interior Minister Ambrose Dery has said 200 police officers have been deployed to protect Members of Parliament (MPs).

This comes after the gruesome murder of the Member of Parliament for Mfantseman Constituency Ekow Kwansah 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.