Chief Director Takes Temporary Charge of Defence(Centre Spread) January 28, 2009

Story:Michael Donkor
THE Chief Director of the Ministry of Defence, Mr Ofosu Appeah, has been directed to take responsibility of the Ministry until the appointment of a substantive Minister.
A source close to the Transition Team of President Mills said this had become necessary following the death of Vice Admiral E.O. Owusu-Ansah who had earlier been appointed by President John Atta Mills to represent him at the ministry.
Vice Admiral Owusu-Ansah died on January 17, 2009.
Meanwhile some officers and men at the General Headquarters of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) have welcomed the news of the retirement of Lt.Gen. J.B Danquah and the appointment of Rear Admiral A.R.S Nuno as a refreshing one.
They described Rear Admiral Nuno as a professional naval officer dedicated to his duty.
The officers and men, who pleaded anonymity, expressed the hope that Rear Admiral Nuno, having gone through all the military rudiments, would bring his rich experience to bear on the GAF.
They were of the belief that although he was only in an acting position, he would improve upon discipline in the GAF.

Armed Forces Investigate Shooting of Cyclist(Page 31) January 16, 2009

Story: Michael Donkor
THE Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) yesterday confirmed that it had launched a full-scale investigation into the shooting incident at Ekumfi Dunkwa in the Central Region on January 2, 2009 which claimed the life of 33-year-old Samuel Tetteh.
In a release signed by the Director of the Public Relations Unit of the GAF, Col E.W.K. Nibo, the GAF confirmed that investigations were underway to establish the circumstances that led to the death of the motor rider and the extent to which the military was involved.
The release said the military enquiry was in addition to the investigations being conducted by the police and advised the media to exercise restraint in their publications and commentaries while they awaited the results of the investigations.
A military source said the GAF received information that on January 2, 2009, Tetteh, who was riding a motor bike in the company of some friends, was allegedly shot dead by some soldiers from the 64 Infantry Regiment.
It said some of the soldiers involved in the incident had been asked to assist in the investigations.
It said the vehicles which were used, with registration numbers 39 GA 74 and 38 GA 32, were also being checked to establish their movement on that day.
The source said the investigative team was expected to invite those friends in whose company the deceased was to help in the investigations.
Meanwhile, Lt Col Thomas Oppong Peprah, the Commanding Officer of the 64 Infantry Regiment, has been assigned to the Defence Intelligence Unit as a Deputy Director and his place at the 64 Infantry Regiment taken over by Lt Col F.D. Arthur.
A short ceremony was held at the General Headquarters at Burma Camp last Wednesday to effect the change.
When Lt Col Peprah was contacted, he confirmed the change but said it was in line with routine military changes that had nothing to do with the ongoing investigations into the shooting incident.
The source advised all officers and men of the GAF to offer their support to the government of Prof John Atta Mills for it to undertake its programme of building a robust Army of a modern standard.

Changes imminent in GAF. Maj-Gen Odotei, 2 others to be considered for CDS(Front page) January 15, 2009

Story: Michael Donkor
A CHANGE within the top brass of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) which will see the appointment and retirement of some senior officers is expected to be announced soon.
Daily Graphic sources indicate that three of the four service chiefs of the Military High Command will be affected.
Those being considered for higher appointment include Major-General Carl Modey, Major-General Samuel Odotei and Major-General A.K. Abdulai, one of whom would be considered for the position of Chief of the Defence Staff.
According to highly placed sources in the transition team of the new government, the names had already been submitted to the President, who is the Commander-in-Chief of the GAF, for consideration and approval.
Others are Brigadier-General Emmanuel Okyere, Brig-Gen T.K. Opoku and Brig-Gen R.O Sackey, one of whom is to be considered as the Chief of Army Staff.
Commodore G.M. Biekro, the Chief Staff Officer at the Navy Headquarters; Commodore F. Daley, the Navy Commander in Takoradi; Commodore Michael Quarshie of the Eastern Naval Command and Commodore Muniru Tahiru are being considered for the position of Chief of Naval Staff, while Air Commodore Michael Sampson-Oje, the Air Force Base Commander in Takoradi; Air Commodore E.R. Krakue, the Air Force Base Commander in Accra, and Air Commodore I.S. Kadiri are being considered for the position of Chief of Air Staff.
The sources said Brig-Gen K. Oppong Kyekye and Brigadier-Gen R. Debrah are being considered for the position of General Officer Commanding the Northern Command, while Brig-Gen John Fokuo and Brig-Gen H.W Agbenuza are being considered for the position of General Officer Commanding the Southern Command.
Major-General Modey is currently the Deputy Force Commander serving with the United Nations Mission in Liberia, while Major-General Odotei is the current Chief of Army Staff.
The sources disclosed that the most favoured for the position is Major-General Odotei, who has demonstrated a high sense of professionalism, competence and loyalty to the Constitution of the country.
They said apart from that he had had several training programmes and courses, both in the United States and the United Kingdom, and served on numerous United Nations Peacekeeping Missions, the latest of which was as a Sector Commander with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone.
He was also appointed the Chief Staff Officer at the General Headquarters of the GAF.
Brig-Gen Okyere is the General Officer Commanding the Southern Command, while Brig-Gen Opoku is the Commandant of the Support Services Brigade.
Commodore Tahiru is currently the Chief Defence Adviser in Cairo, Egypt, while Brig-Gen Sackey is the Commandant of the Military Academy and Training School.
The sources said the change in the command structure was being quickened in conformity with the regulations of the GAF and in fulfilment of the 1992 Constitution.
They said presently the service commanders had finished preparing their handing-over notes and were waiting to hand them over.

WITHHOLD PROMOTIONS AND RECENT DEFENCE POSTINGS TRANSITION TEAM RECOMMENDS(FRONT PAGE) January 14, 2009

Story: Michael Donkor
Recent promotions made in the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), as well as defence attaché postings made to foreign missions, are likely to be put on hold as a result of complaints of irregularities.
Sources close to the transition team on National Security disclosed to the Daily Graphic that this and other recommendations were to be made to President John Atta Mills, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the GAF, after the transition team had reviewed the new promotions and postings and received complaints of irregularities about some of the postings and the manner in which the exercise was undertaken.
The postings and promotions were made on December 22, 2008, two weeks before President Mills was sworn into office, and that of the promotions took effect on December 31, 2008 while the postings takes effect on January 31, 2009.
The promotions and the postings had already been published by the GAF in their restricted letters and copies given to all the service chiefs, according to service regulations.
Consequently, National Security has requested for all the documents pertaining to the processes of the postings for further scrutiny.
At the time of filing this report, National Security had received most of the documents covering the postings and promotions from the Military High Command and had held discussions with the military leadership to discuss the irregularities found.
The source said the meeting affirmed that as a disciplined entity, it was important for the GAF to maintain such discipline within the rank and file of the officers and men of the service, for which reason acts that were likely to break down that discipline and create disenchantment among the personnel were not supposed to be entertained.
It said President Mills’s administration was poised to maintain a high level of discipline and fairness and meet the needs of the Armed Forces to enable them to perform creditably and hold the flag of Ghana very high among the comity of nations.
It said, for instance, that some of the officers being posted as defence attaches were junior to those who were going to serve under them.
Another source close to the Military High Command, however, told the Daily Graphic that the due processes were followed in making those promotions and postings and that there was no cause for alarm.
It said all the service chiefs signed the lists for the promotions and postings, after which the then Commander-in-Chief of the GAF, former President John Agyekum Kufuor, gave his assent to it on December 29, 2008.
The source said the postings and promotions were also in order and in accordance with GAF regulations, adding that they met all the constitutional requirements of the GAF and that the announcement of the appointments and promotions had been delayed because of presidential run-off which had diverted the attention of the whole country.
The source explained that promotions and postings within the GAF were a routine and that every year two of such moves were undertaken.
It stated that this was not the first time that the announcement of such moves had been delayed, citing the year 2000 when the National Democratic Congress was about to hand over power to the New Patriotic Party and said similar postings and promotions were announced a day before the handing-over ceremony.

More debates on Kufuor's proposal( centre spread), January 9, 2009

Story: Michael Donkor
THE proposal by the Immediate Past President, Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, for the extension of the tenure of office of future presidents and the regulation of the term of members of the Electoral Commission (EC) has engendered debate among civil society organisations, academicians and some participants at this year’s New Year School.
Reacting to the proposal in an interview in Accra, Mr Laary Bimi, the Chairman of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), and two senior accademicians of the university of Ghana, Prof Kwame Boafo-Arthur, the Head of the Political Science Department, and Dr Raymond Atugubah, a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, disagreed with the suggestions.
Mr Bimi argued that it was too early to start tampering with the Constitution and explained that since the Constitution came into being, the country had had only two former Presidents so it was too early to start talking about amending it.
Mr Bimi argued that the country needed to test the Constitution against the experiences of more presidents, a situation which called for patience and tolerance, and suggested that more governments should be allowed to practise the Constitution for at least a generation and that the present generation should pass it on to the next generation for it to decide whether they would want to amend it or not.
He noted that the country had more pressing issues, such as poverty reduction and other social challenges, which should be tackled with its meagre resources, instead of spending those resources on constitutional amendments for the extension of the tenure of office of the President or fixing a tenure for the EC.
On the suggestion to elect the chairmen of the EC with fixed tenures through an electoral college, Mr Bimi said it should be considered against the country’s history and made reference to a period during the era of Gen Kutu Acheampong when the Electoral Commissioner, Mr Justice Abban, came under intense pressure from the power brokers and had to escape.
He said that, coupled with other pressures that came to bear on subsequent ECs, might have informed the Constituent Assembly to structure the EC in its current form.
Mr Bimi said if the current EC and Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan had not been so insulated by the Constitution, they could not have exhibited the resolve they displayed and Ghana would not have had peaceful elections.
He said Dr Afari-Gyan’s work and pronouncements before the Tain election were what saved the country from a catastrophe because, according to him, until then there was mutual suspicion that the election results were being massaged in favour of one party and if the results had been declared in full then, the reactions would have been uncontrollable.
He said Dr Afari-Gyan was able to manage the situation successfully not only because of his intellectual capacity but also his secured tenure of office.
He recalled that as Chairman of the NCCE, he himself had served two years under former President Rawlings and eight years under former President Kufuor but neither of them ever tried to influence him.
Mr Bimi said that was the beauty of the democracy the country was endeavouring to build.
He said one did not need to be on a job for six years to win public trust and that one could be in a job for a day or a week and still win public trust.
Prof Boafo-Arthur said the four-year term of office had worked very well for the country since democracy was re-introduced in Ghana in 1992 and should be maintained.
He noted that presidents were human beings and fatigue, as well as shortage of ideas, could set in during their tenure and so the four-year, two-term arrangement was enough.
He said Ghana was imitating other democracies, such as that of the US, which also had four-year terms for their presidents and it had worked very well for them, explaining that if Ghana was imitating the US, then there was no need to extend it.
Prof Boafo-Arthur said personally he felt that the four-year, two-term tenure was enough to ensure that no President stayed in office too long to begin to think that the seat was his personal property.
He said once the country’s democracy had been institutionalised, there would be continuity.
He, however, commended former President Kufuor for making those suggestions but said if they were desirable, they should not come from one person.
He said although the proposal was coming from someone who had been the President of the country and served his two terms, with his party losing the 2008 presidential election, it was necessary for it to be looked at from a very dispassionate angle.
On chairmen of the EC, Prof Boafo-Arthur said there might be a reason President Kufuor called for a fixed term of office for them and also be elected by an electoral college.
He said the current Chairman of the EC, Dr Afari-Gyan, was doing his work to the best of his ability.
He said that could be justified from the way he had conducted elections in the country which had seen one government handing over power to the opposition on two occasions.
He said if there was no security and independence of members of the EC, their neutrality would have been compromised by politicians by now.
For his part, Dr Atugubah said one should not be a President if he did not have an agenda.
He said that agenda should be known to Ghanaians and once it was good and followed by a sitting President, he would be successful and his mandate would surely be renewed by the electorate when it ended for him to complete the two terms.
He said it was only when a country had a bad President that he would be voted out of office after his first term and argued that the four-year two-term tenure was enough.
Dr Atugubah noted that if the term office of a President was extended unduly, considering the country’s recent history, one might be inviting other means to change an unpopular government other than constitutional means.
He referred to the US and said the tenure of office of the President there was four years and that it was doing very well.
He said on members of the EC, their independence and security of office were very important for the development of the country’s democracy.
He said electing them and giving them a fixed term of office would only produce a lean commission and commissioners, adding that when that happened, there would always be pressure from the Executive on the EC to toe its line.
A Deputy General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr John Nyoagbe, said the extension of the term of the presidency from four to five years was a good idea, reports Emmanuel Bonney from the New Year School.
He said with a five-year renewable term, a new government could use the first year of its administration to settle down and use the rest of the period to do the actual work.
He said most often when a government assumed power, it had little time to settle down and had to rush to do things.
Another officer of GNAT, Mr Jacob Anderson, shared a similar view and was of the belief that with a five-year term a government should be able to deliver on most of its promises.
They both, however, kicked against the former President’s suggestion to have a fixed term of office for the commissioners of the Electoral Commission (EC).
Such an idea, they said, was not good, as it would make the commissioners serve the interests of the governments that appointed them.
Mr Theophilus Kojo Hagan, who described himself as a chief citizen, said the Constituent Assembly that fixed the term for the presidency at four years knew what it was about and, therefore, the four years should be maintained.
“The members of the assembly were intelligent people and had good intentions to make the term for the presidency four years renewable,” he said.
Mr Paul Nyarko, a teacher, also disagreed with the idea of a five-year term, adding that “some politicians can take advantage of the situation to amass wealth at the expense of the poor”.
He said the four-year renewable term should be maintained so that politicians would not become power drunk.
For Mr Raymond Ayroe, a retired teacher, the four-year term was good, as it would put politicians on their toes to start delivering as soon as they assumed office so that they could get another mandate from the people.
Mr Mahama Ayariga, the Spokesperson for President John Evans Atta Mills, for his part, said although the NDC administration had a different view of the constitutional reviews suggested by former President Kufuor, it would not dismiss them outright, reports Donald Ato Dapatem.
He said President Kufuor made those suggestions from his observations and experience gathered over the years as President for eight years and 40 years of active political life, as well as an elderly statesman, adding that suggestions from such a personality should not be dismissed entirely.
Mr Ayariga said Prof Mills campaigned on the basis of winning power and fulfilling the promises made within the four-year mandate prescribed by the Constitution and so based on those promises and the constitutional arrangements the NDC would not hesitate to make any such review.
However, he said as was promised during the NDC campaign, the Mills government would institute measures for some constitutional reviews during the early stages of its term and that during discussions if the NPP found it feasible to raise such issues, in addition to what the NDC would bring up,, they would be welcomed.
According to Mr Ayariga, there was nothing wrong with the members of the EC that warranted a specific tenure of office for them.
He argued that the issue with the electoral process was purely acts of lawlessness on the part of some electorate and candidates, which had nothing to do with the behaviour and tenure of any of the EC members.
He said some of the problems associated with election malpractice include under-age voting, double registration, double voting, as well as chaotic behaviour at the polling stations.
He said all those acts were criminal offences which EC officials had little authority to stop.
He said it was the security agencies that had the power and authority to cause arrests in such instances because they were criminal offences.