Ex-Minister Cited In Cocaine Spread

By Larry-Alans Dogbey

It has emerged that Ghana witnessed at record level of the influx of cocaine during the tenure of Albert Kan-Dapaah as the Minister of Interior under the erstwhile Kufuor administration because he was “dismissive and irritated” when he was presented with problems on the dangerous narcotic drugs in the country by foreign experts who were determined to rid Ghana off drugs.

The ex-Minister’s “dismissive and irritated” have left doubts in the minds of British government over his role in the arrest of the infamous MV Benjamin shipping vessel which carried the 77 parcels of the cocaine into Ghana, which disappeared leading to the setting up of Georgina Wood Committee on the orders of Mr. Kan-Dapaah.

“The U.K. recently shared intelligence with the GOG on a vessel coming to Ghana from South America suspected to be carrying cocaine. King said a vessel left from Tema to provide the suspect ship with fuel and water. According to King, however, the Ghana navy failed to find it and may not have even tried (although it is not clear to us that the navy received the U.K. information),” the British were quoted to have said.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah’s reprehensible attitude towards combating the narcotic drugs forced Ghana’s partners in the fight against the canker conclude in June 2007, that the government of Ghana had become more disinterested in the fight unlike the period of Papa Owusu Ankoma as Interior Minister.

A Lagos-based British Serious Organized Crime (SOCA) Officer, John King reached the damning conclusion which he subsequently later disclosed to officials of American Embassy in Accra soon after his encounter with Mr. Kan-Dapaah.

The disclosure comes on the heels of the an earlier revelations Mr. Kan-Dapaah was questioned at the National Security Secretariat during the tenure of the exiled ex-National Security Minister, Mr. Francis Poku, by officials of the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB).

The probe followed disclosures by the disgraced ex-New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament, Eric Amoateng who was jailed in the US for narcotic drugs trafficking in that country that he that ceramic pots in which he conceal the drugs were shipped to the minister and colleague MP, Mr. Dapaah, back home in Ghana.

Mr. Kan-Dapaah, had publicly said indeed he took delivery of some ceramics which he took to his constituency in the Ashanti Region and shared amongst his constituents.

These shocking revelations were made in one of the leaked secret diplomatic letters called cables written about Ghana by the American intelligence officers and sent to the United States of America (USA) and published by the Wikileaks, a website dedicated to disclosing diplomatic secrets worldwide.

Diplomatic secrets correspondence between the US Embassy here in Ghana and the US State Department on drug related issues in Ghana from 2007-2009.

An earlier cable had stated that an official told agents of the US Embassy in Ghana that the barons are generally supporters of the NPP and he suggested that the ruling party had no plans to pursue these individuals even though many of their identities are known”.

A higher-ranking official, of NACOB said the body was motionless, the document said, pointing out that the official whose name was withheld said that the Government of Ghana effectively neutralized NACOB since the embarrassing arrest in the US of NPP MP Eric Amoateng in 2005.

All the high-ranking officials during that time were been removed. This was because the GOG was upset with NACOB since it co-operated closely with the USG on the case, which resulted in Amoateng’s guilty plea and subsequent imprisonment in the U.S.

*Ben Ndego, Papa Owusu Ankomah And What Happened At NACOB*

Meanwhile, a former Deputy Director of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), has discounted claims by leaked US diplomatic cables suggesting the government in 2007/08 lacked the political will to fight drugs in the country.

Mr. Ben Ndego, who called into Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile last Saturday, said it was rather some individuals in the previous NPP government who worked systematically to undermine efforts at fighting the drug menace.

The confidential US cables and quoted a December 2007 cable as saying “Embassy contacts in the police service and the president’s office ‘have said they know the identities of the major barons,’ but ‘the government of Ghana does not have the political will to go after [them]’”.

Mr. Ndego who had by that time been interdicted as part of investigations into the disappearance of some 5kilograms of cocaine from NACOB offices however said the claims of government complicity was false.

He maintained that certain individuals – whose names he wouldn’t mention – deliberately made it difficult if not impossible for the fight against drugs to succeed.

He singled out former Interior Minister, Papa Owusu Ankomah for praise because he worked tirelessly to deal with the trafficking of drugs through Ghana.

The former Deputy NACOB boss however did not have as much commendable words for Mr. Owusu Ankomah’s successor at the Interior Ministry, Albert Kan-Dapaah.

“…good people like Papa Owusu-Ankomah… the then Minister of Interior – who… left, and a week later Kan-Dapaah came and removed us, nobody has ever spoken to him about the good effort… he [made] to help Narcotics Control Board to operate efficiently,” he said.

He claimed the fight against drugs took a nosedive when the new interior minister interdicted him and his boss.

Mr. Ben Ndego, who is back at NACOB, accused Mr Kan-Dapaah – the Member of Parliament for Afigya-Sekyere – of recruiting his constituents who neither had the experience nor the willingness to vigorously fight the drug trade.

“The political will was there and the political will always be there in government at the top level, but unfortunately you will have individuals within the system who have their personal motives,” he said.

Mr. Ndego claimed there was a conspiracy to demonize him and his boss to prepare the grounds for their dismissal. NACOB under their (he and his boss) direction, he noted, was “targeting some individuals that was hurting.”

He emphasized the need for a concerted effort at dealing with the drug problem because the challenge of drugs was a formidable one since “drug dealers walk in the corridors of power and sponsor people to become politicians.”

*US SECRET DOCUMENTS*

John King after several days of discussions with counternarotics contacts in Accra, including the Ministers of Interior and National Security. King told the US agent that the U.K shared intelligence with the Ghanaian government on a vessel coming to country from South America suspected to be carrying cocaine.

The vessel, The Herald’s findings have revealed was the famous MV Benjamin in which the 77 parcels of cocaine mysteriously disappeared and have since 2006 not been located.

King said a vessel left Tema to provide the suspect ship with fuel and water. However, “the Ghana navy failed to find it and may not have even tried (although it is not clear to us that the navy received the U.K. information)”.

“King found Minister of Interior Kan-Dapaah dismissive and irritated when King raised problems with narcotics at the airport. King concluded that the GOG was more indifferent to the narcotics issue than in 2006 and had made little progress to tackle this problem in the past year”, the letter added.

These concerns were mirrored in a June 25, 2007, Mini-Dublin Group meeting, the second such narcotics cooperation meeting held in Accra, hosted by the French Embassy and attended by diplomats from the U.S., Dutch, Spanish, Italian, British, and German.

The French DCM told the group that two weeks earlier, a French naval vessel intercepted a ship loaded with cocaine coming to Ghana from South America. Given concerns about narcotics trafficking here, a French narcotic liaison officer was to be assigned to Ghana starting in September of that year.

The German official noted that Lufthansa was seeing small but increasing quantities of narcotics trafficking on its flights out of Ghana and therefore, were also exploring assigning a permanent narcotics liaison officer to Accra.

The Italian representative said their Dakar-based narcotics watcher was reporting a large increase of narcotics trafficking from South America through West Africa.

The group, therefore, agreed to send a joint letter to the Minister of the Interior, expressing growing concerns about Ghana’s narcotics situation.

The Americans saw the appointment of Mr. Ben Botwe as a more discouraging sign of the Kufuor government’s weak counter-narcotics efforts, and reinforcing their worries that there was no political will in combating the drug menace.

“More worrisome, according to our Political Assistant Locally Engaged Staff, Botwe had a reputation at the Food and Drugs Board for being amenable to influence”, they said.

They explained that Mr. Botwe lacks experience dealing with illicit narcotics and turned to his deputy, a senior police officer, who also lacked the energy or independent political standing, on substantive questions.