Defence Minister Fights

Report By Prince PRAH

The Defence Minister, General JH Smith is desperately trying to redeem his 'tattered' image after telling lies to Parliament on two major occasions during his vetting for ministerial appointment and appearance to answer an urgent question on the fate of the 420 Army potential Recruits.

This paper can reveal with authority that General JH Smith after flopping wretchedly in Parliament on Wednesday 10th June 2009 called two emergency meetings on Friday 12th to plan his damage control.

According to sources, after making a faux pas in trying to apportion blame for poor staff brief, he accepted the good counsel of a lone brave minority voice that a well packaged response was required to repair, redeem and enhance the image and reputation of himself in particular, and the Armed Forces as a whole as quickly as possible.

Coming on the heels of the Minister's meetings are the meetings being held by the members of Military High Command also to redeem their image, to address the issue of low morale and the creeping tensions in the GAF following the intentional tribal cleansing that has rocked the once dignified service of late. For instance, on 16th June and Thursday 18th June 2009, some members of the High Command held meetings at the premises of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College. The first meeting on Tuesday 16th June had the CDS, the Chief of Army Staff, the Commandants of KAIPTC and GAFCSC attending and it preceded the first durbar of the CDS, Maj Gen Blay held at Burma Hall on Wednesday 17th June 2009.

There was yet another meeting of the Military High Command at Teshie, where the CDS, the Air Force Commander, the 2 Commandants of KAIPTC and GAFCSC attending whiles the Chief of Army Staff was absent because of official duty at Bundase where he addressed troops going on peace-keeping operations. The role played by Col Chris Nutakor, the head of Army Faculty in convening these meetings has attracted some interest in certain quarters. We gathered that some of the loyalists of the Minister were surprised about his inability to tell Parliament about the recruitment process having been an Army Commander for four and half years (September 1996 to March 2001) and should have known the process at finger tips.

Even though he was brief and given documentary evidence of the entire process, he was advised to see the Majority Leader in Parliament to ensure that he did not appear before the House on the same issue as he might be 'slaughtered' by the Minority NPP side.

He called the second meeting after this paper exposed his lies and challenged him to provide evidence about the lies he told Parliament on 10th February 2009 that some of the potential recruits had fake driving license, some could not read nor write, some did not undergo medical examination while others did not take part in the recruitment exercise at all. He obviously told lies as he categorically said that they had observed those anomalies at a time when his illegal BOI into the recruitment of the 420 potential recruits had not commenced work.

General JH Smith got to know rather belatedly that the Department of Defence Intelligence had an important role to play in the entire recruitment process especially after the list of those short-listed for training had been to the service headquarters. For instance, he was briefed that a copy of the list of 420 recruits was sent to the Department of Defence Intelligence on the 23rd January 2009 at the same time another copy was sent to Army Headquarters and both service Headquarters were expected to take action.

Army Headquarters took action on the list and invited all 420 potential Recruits by individual letters on 27th January 2009 after a memo had been prepared for General SA Odotei and the letter had received approval.

It was therefore surprising that the same General SA Odotei was used by the 'Powers-that -Be' to suspend the training of the 420 recruits because he was seriously looking forward to become the CDS which he never got.

After the second emergency meeting, the Minister, with the support of his buddies, the Military High Command and the office of the National Coordinator, strategized to do a perfect damage control job using the Department of Defence Intelligence.

He has therefore instructed the Department of Defence Intelligence to do a painstaking vetting of the documents of the 420 Potential Recruits, the remaining 660 Army Second Batch, the 196 Air Force Potential Recruits and the 200 Navy Potential Recruits.

According to sources, the Acting Director General of Defence Intelligence, Naval Captain FK Eshun aka Zola is desperately looking for information and documents from the Directorate of Military Records, Public Relations, Personnel Administration and the three service Headquarters (i.e. Army, Air Force and Navy).