Despite reports that a group of opposition parties are demonstrating in Tamale over high utility tariffs, police in the Northern regional capital have said they are only aware of a planned demonstration by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
The Coalition of Opposition Political Parties, made up of the NPP, the People’s National Convention (PNC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP), and the National Democratic Party (NDP), are today, 22 August, embarking on a demonstration at a time President John Dramani Mahama is starting his campaign in the region ahead of this year’s presidential elections.
The Northern Regional Police Commander, DCOP Ken Yeboah, speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, on Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Monday said: “We have no idea of a group called Coalition of Opposition Political Parties demonstrating. All we know is that the NPP wrote to us two weeks ago that they wanted to do a demonstration today against electricity tariffs in Ghana.”
“We gave them the permit to go ahead and assured them of police protection so they signed an undertaking that they would follow the rules and regulations.”
But because the Hajj pilgrims will be travelling during that period and also President Mahama [is] starting his campaign tour of the region on that date, we told them to postpone the demonstration till after the president had left the area because his security was paramount. They did not buy into this because they claimed they had already made plans and preparations for the event.”
DCOP Yeboah added that although the president was going to be in the region at the time of the demonstration, he would not be in the area where the demonstration would be held, thus, they gave the green light for the demonstration on Monday.
He said: “We realised that the President’s tour would not start in Tamale but rather Salaga and so we allowed them to go ahead with the demonstration.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
