The Police Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) are threatening to prosecute the Member of Parliament for Weija, Shirley Ayorkor-Botwe, for failing to renew her car insurance cover.

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,” police have said.

Officials of the MTTU detained Ms Ayorkor-Botwe’s driver, over the weekend, for questioning.

The Commander of the MTTU, Daniel Avorgah, told Joy News that officers discovered that the MP might have broken the law after examining documents covering the car, which was seized about two months ago on suspicion that it belonged to the state.

“There are certain numbers that are classified as diplomatic number plates and would she have driven it [for] six months because there was some hullabaloo about it and then they are trying to investigate the importation and the sale of the vehicle? It [amounts to] flouting the laws of this country,” he said.

“And when people flout the laws of this country it is the statutory duty of the police to call the person to order.”

He also maintained the MP’s vehicle had no valid road worthiness certificate.

Meanwhile the Weija MP has dismissed the response by the police.

She insists former government officials who had been entitled to state vehicles or purchased any were directed to hold on with changing the ownership of the vehicles.

“No former minister of state has been able to register his or her vehicles because of [a] directive that came,” she claimed.

The seizure of Ms Ayorkor-Botwe’s vehicle is one of several others by government officials in what they claimed were attempts to 'stop the pilfering of state coffers'.

Government is yet to conclude an investigation into alleged ownership and importation irregularities of a vehicle belonging to the flag-bearer of the NPP for Election 2008.

The Toyota Land Cruiser was confiscated by national security operatives from a repair shop at La last March.


Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana