The Central Regional Command says it has started processes to invite the Member of Parliament for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, Mavis Hawa Koomson for questioning after she confessed firing a gunshot at a voter registration centre on Monday.
A confrontation ensued at the Step to Christ registration centre in the constituency on Monday, July 20, 2020, which led to gunshots being fired and motorbikes being burnt.
The lawmaker for the Constituency who also doubles as the Minister responsible for Special Development Initiatives justified firing the gunshot saying she did that in self-defence.
“When I got the information that people were being bused from some places into my constituency, I couldn’t sit down for people to come and register in my constituency and elect an MP for the people of Kasoa…I work with men because I can’t work with women alone in this political enterprise. None of my men had guns on them when we got to the centre, I fired the shots myself. Yes, I gave those warning shots to protect myself,” she said.
But the Ghana Police Service who had already arrested four persons in connection with gunshots, says they have started processes to “invite” the MP to assist them with investigations.
According to the Public Relations Officer for the Command, DSP Irene Oppong, the processes ought to be followed in inviting the MP.
“We have gathered information through informants and also the media today that there are people who have voluntarily come out to confess their involvement in some of the activities that happened there. They are the people we are inviting to come and help us with investigations. We’ll invite Honourable Mavis Hawa Koomson to come and assist us, but then there is a procedure,” she said in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show.
“If you intend to invite a sitting MP to come to the police station to assist with the investigation, there is a procedure so we have started the procedure as a police agency and it will be forwarded to her and we expect that she will assist us in this. Police is a procedural work and again we have the service instruction that gives us the directions on how you go about your investigations and we also have the criminal procedure which also aids us in doing our work,” DSP Irene Oppong added.
NDC caused ‘undemocratic’ chaos at registration centre
Meanwhile, the office of the Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya East, Mavis Hawa Koomson says the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is to blame for the circumstances that led to the confusion that occurred at the Step to Christ registration centre during the Electoral Commission’s voter exercise in the Constituency.
A statement from the party a day after the unfortunate incident accused the NDC of causing the altercation following what she said was the “refusal of the EC to accede to the NDC’s illogical, persistent call for the registration process to be aborted.”
“The NDC’s verbal tirade, their stock in trade, being unleashed on the Member of Parliament, Hon. Mavis Hawa Koomson demonstrated that the NDC is undemocratic in nature”.
According to the party, the NDC is bent on disrupting the registration process by busing people outside the Constituency to register.
