Mavis Hawa Koomson
The Central Regional Police Criminal Investigative Department (CID) has taken the weapon allegedly fired by the Minister for Special Development Initiatives, Mavis Hawa Koomson, at Kasoa last week.
The pistol fired by Hawa Koomson, who doubles as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Awutu Senya East Constituency, has been taken as part of exhibits in the matter, according to DSP Irene Serwaah Oppong, Central Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO).
DSP Oppong said the Regional Police Command retrieved the weapon and ammunition together with a licence covering the weapon and has handed over the docket to the CID Headquarters in Accra.
She also said that the minister was invited and a statement taken from her.
Polling Station Chaos
The firing of a weapon at a voters registration centre by the minister started another heated debate between the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Hawa Koomson later admitted that she fired the shot at the Steps to Christ registration centre and claimed it was in self-defence.
Her admission comes on the heels of the story about the firing of shots at the registration and subsequent arrest of four persons in connection with the incident by the police.
Chaos Galore
Fifteen persons were reported to have descended upon the registration with the intention of stopping the process which they succeeded in doing anyway because the Electoral Commission (EC) engaged in the exercise stopped work and did not even oblige the request of the police to resume, saying they were awaiting directives from their regional office in Cape Coast.
The MP, nonetheless, said on radio that “none of my men had guns on them when we got to the centre. I fired the shots myself.”
She had said she had no police escort and so had to protect herself when some opposition elements tried to charge on her.
Her movement to the location, she went on, was because she heard that her opponent, the NDC’s candidate Naa Koryor Okunor, had bused her supporters to the place, a claim corroborated by the NPP in the constituency.
“I’m a Member of Parliament; I need to protect myself. It was at dawn, and my police escort had not started work yet. So that is a mechanism I have adopted in his absence,” she said.
NDC Denial
Naa Okunor, on her part, accused her NPP counterpart of being responsible for the confusion.
(lindatenyah@gmail.com)
By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey