MPs On Hit List

Daily Guide has received information that the name of Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, MP for Weija, has been given to National Security agents at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) and border patrol guards with ‘instructions’ that she should not be allowed to leave the country and that her passport should be seized should she try to do so. Security agents had reportedly been told that when they sight Ayorkor Botchway, they should tell her that the Speaker of Parliament had been informed of the intention of the security agencies to interrogate her and she could therefore not leave the country.This instruction comes days after the Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Betty Mould-Iddrisu, told Ghanaians that the government had no hit list of ex-government officials. The Weija MP, on Thursday, checked her luggage into a KLM flight to travel outside the country for a private visit and was about to board the flight when she had a tip-off that she would be stopped at the boarding gate with the excuse that the National Security wanted to interrogate her sometime this week. The female politician, who wanted to avoid the embarrassment, decided not to board the flight after all. She therefore decided to return home and observe how the plot would unfold. In the ungodly hours of the next day, her 27-year-old driver was dragged out of his room at midnight and locked in Police cells overnight on allegations that his boss, Ayorkor Botchway, had a vehicle which was not properly registered. The MP, who followed up to the police station, was told to sign a self-recognizance bail before she would be allowed to go home and that she was the main target. “The Police people claim the Speaker of Parliament had been informed to tell me that they want to speak with me but she has not told me anything and when I checked, she had not been given any such information,” Ayorkor Botchway told Daily Guide. ACP Daniel Avogah, Commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service, waded into the horrible controversy, accusing Ayorkor Botchway of jumping from one radio station to another to claim innocence and politicize the midnight arrest of her driver.The Commander also threatened to prosecute her for failing to renew her car insurance cover. He was also threatening that the MP’s driver could also be charged for allegedly operating a vehicle without his driver’s license “at the time that he was driving”. He justified the arrest of Abdul-Razak Aminu, Ayorkor’s driver, with an explanation that when the car, a Peugeot 406 with registration number NR961W, was snatched from her about five weeks ago, the vehicle had no road worthy certificate and insurance cover; therefore Razark Aminu, who was driving it at the time it was snatched, had committed an offence.ACP Avogah admitted that the said vehicle was registered in the name of the government and thus had no road worthy certificate and insurance cover. He averred however that Ayorkor Botchway, being a Legislator, ought to know that it was unlawful to drive a vehicle that had no road worthy certificate and insurance cover. “If ACP Avogah says I was running from station to station politicizing the issue then what was he also doing from station to station; his explanation is very unfortunate and he is threatening court action; it is even late for him; he should stop the radio talk and send me to court if he is sure I have committed an offence. “I am a responsible Member of Parliament and I have properly registered all my vehicles except for this one because of a directive from government that all documentations on the said vehicles should be halted and this is public knowledge. If government wanted us to do any other thing, they would have informed us,” Ayorkor Botchway told Daily Guide. The MP said she used the said vehicle from 2005 to 2008 in her capacity as a Deputy Minister and on leaving office in 2009, opted for a government policy that allows the administrative class to purchase their official vehicles which are two years and over. After paying for the cost of the vehicle, there was an order from government that all former government appointees who had purchased their official vehicles should not go ahead to do the change of ownership which is a prerequisite for acquiring the Road Worthy Certificate and Insurance Cover. About five weeks ago, National security agents snatched the said vehicle from Ayorkor Botchway’s driver and have since not returned it