The Member of Parliament (MP) for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak has served notice attempts by Parliament to engage private firms to provide security for Members of Parliament will not be accepted.
He suspects the recruits were being drawn from the dreaded vigilante groups affiliated to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) such as the Delta Force, Invisible Forces among others.
The recruits, Starr News understands have been engaged by Parliament and are undergoing training on weekends at both the Chamber and Job 600.
That, according to Dr. Apaak, is worrying as the expectation was that the state’s recognized security agencies should be the ones deployed to provide security to the legislators.
“Coming to hear by virtue of the fact that I was not present on Saturday [January 27] because I had other engagements in my constituency that a number of security personnel who were not recognized police officers were in and around and about in parliament certainly raised a lot of eyebrows,” he stated on Starr Today, Monday January 29.
He continued, “Indeed, some of our colleagues have recognized some elements who they have seen as members of this private security elements deployed to be affiliates and members of the said groups [Delta Forces, Invisible forces among others] and we have every reason to raise alarm” as well as call attention to why that was the case.
“Quite clearly, I don’t think that the responsibility of providing security for Members of Parliament and Parliament should be in the domain of a private security, let alone an entity that is recruiting and deploying people that we know are affiliated with the ruling NPP,” he told hosts of Starr Today, Atiewin Mbillah-Lawson and Naa Dedei Tettei.
Vowing to reject the move by parliament, he stressed that there could not be any justification to deploy private security entities to be providing security to MPs noting “it simply doesn’t wash.”
“…So, there are a lot of questions that we need to ask. We can’t just accept any and every one purporting to be providing us with security in this type of environment,” he said.
“Make no mistake, we take our security very seriously and we’ll defend our interest [and] we’ll reject any attempt to try and set entities on us, to spy on us and perhaps even to engage in other activities that will be detrimental to our well-being,” he added.
On her part, the acting Public Affairs Director of Parliament, Kate Addo confirmed that Parliament before it went on break recruited “new security men” and they are being trained to familiarize with how Parliament works.
She, however, denied knowledge of the claims by Dr. Apaak that the recruits were drawn from vigilante forces affiliated with the governing NPP.
“It is true that Parliament before we went on recess had augmented the number of Policemen in Parliament. But it’s also true that it had employed new security men who are being trained about how Parliament works and who are being familiarized with the various surroundings of Parliament,” she stated on Starr Today.
She continued: “In the past few weeks over the weekend these young men have been coming for various orientations and physical training programme in Parliament…now the Saturday’s training coincided with the special sitting of the House where the Rt. Honourable Speaker was sworn in as acting president of the republic of Ghana following the absence from the jurisdiction of president Akufo-Addo.
“That explained why they were there [but] as to whether they belong to a particular political party or not I’d not be able to speak to that but I do not know that. But, what I can tell you is that they have been employed by parliament.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
