The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defense and Interior, Kennedy Agyapong, has called for the dismissal of the Ashanti Regional Urban Road’s Director.
Mr Agyapong noted that the failure of the urban road’s Director to fix speed ramps on the roads led to the clash between students and the police officers.
According to him, management of the school since 2010 had written to the director to provide speed ramps on the roads to minimize road accidents but their plea fell on deaf ears.
“We have evidence that the school has written to the Ashanti Regional Urban Roads Director since 2010, the last one was September 2021 and nothing has been done, people are dying, people get injured, damage to their cars and all the letters paid no heeded. I think somebody should be fired from there.”
“If I am a Minister today, I will fire the urban roads director. If they had paid attention to what the headmaster said in the letters he has written so far this wouldn’t have happened, students getting injured, police getting injured,” he added.
Kennedy Agyapong made these remarks when he led a delegation of some other MPs to the school to ascertain the facts pertaining to the brutal incident.
Over 30 Islamic SHS students hospitalized after police allegedly fired at them during protest
The legislators embarked on the trip after the Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin had tasked the Select Committee on Defence and Interior to probe the incident after police fired tear gas, leading to the collapse and injury of over 30 students.
On June 13, some students took to the streets to register their displeasure over the increase in pedestrian knockdowns involving students and teachers of the school.
The rift between the Police and students of the Islamic school ensued when students who were demanding the construction of speed rumps blocked the Abrepo Junction-Barekese, thereby causing vehicular and human traffic for more than an hour.
In an attempt to disperse the demonstrating students and ease vehicular movement, the Police allegedly opened tear gas on the protesting students, injuring over 30 of them.
The Inspector General of Police, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, led a team from the Police Headquarters in Accra to Kumasi following the disturbances in the Senior High School.
After the IGP assessed the situation, the Ghana Police issued a statement admitting that the police officer deployed to maintain law and other did not follow the laid down procedures.
The Service noted that a more calculated tactic could have led to a much salient resolution to the chaos and not the development that was seen in the Ashanti Region on Monday.
As a result, the acting Deputy Ashanti Regional Commander, DCOP Kwasi Akomeah-Apraku, was removed from his position.
ACP Mr George Ankomah, the Regional Operations Officer and ACP Mr Alex Cudjoe Acquah, the Suame Divisional Police Commander were both interdicted.
“It was further established that even though nobody was hit by a bullet the Police handling of the incident was poor and fell short of our standard operating procedure on crowd control.
“As a result, DCOP Kwesi Akomeah-Apraku who was acting as the Regional Commander has been removed from his position and has been interdicted. Two other officers, ACP Mr George Ankomah, the Regional Operations Officer and ACP Mr Alex Cudjoe Acquah, the Suame Divisional Police Commander have also been interdicted to make way for a thorough investigation into the matter.”
Source: The Independent Ghana
