Narcotic Control Board In Dissarry

…No board meeting in a year, despite drug scare
…Deputy Minister loses chairmanship post, controversy over recruitment

The nation’s anti-narcotic security establishment, the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) is currently enveloped by controversial developments that have left security experts raising concerns about the possible devastating consequences of such developments on the effective combat against the drug menace that has engulfed the nation.

The Chronicle can report that, as at now, the institution has no duly constituted Board and since May last year the Board that used to be Chaired by Deputy Interior Minister, Mr. Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has never met, not even in the face of the massive cocaine mess that hit the country in the second half of last year and which the nation is yet to find solutions to.

The closest to an effort to look at the work of the Narcotic institution was a United Nation’s Development Programme (UNDP) sponsored workshop that was held in Elmina from October 27 to 31 last year, during which experts were drawn from in and outside Ghana to advise on how to strengthen the institution to function effectively to mitigate the drug menace.

But even with that, enquiries by the paper have revealed that almost all the recommendations that were arrived at, at the said workshop, prominent among which was the recommendation that the Board should be transformed into an Independent Commission, have not been attended to or are yet to be considered.

Weeks ago, the paper contacted the Deputy Interior Minister, to seek clarifications on some of the worrying developments at the Narcotics Board and why there had not been a Board meeting despite the cocaine scandal.

The deputy minister, who was by ‘convention’, the Chairman of the Board, declined to comment and asked that the Minister himself should be spoken to.

The paper later gathered that Mr. Agyemang Manu was no longer the Chairman of the Board – something that people closer to NACOB say they were not aware of - and that the Minister himself was now having direct oversight responsibility over the Board.

In an interview on Monday, Mr. Albert Kan Dappah, the Interior Minister, confirmed that the Deputy Minister was no longer the Board Chairman.

The Minister told the paper that at the moment, there was no duly constituted Board but noted that plans were underway to have one constituted. He emphasized that he was now having direct oversight responsibility for the institution.

The controversy at NACOB transcends the circumstances under which the Deputy Minister lost the Chairmanship post and the non-holding of a Board meeting since the cocaine scandal.

Chronicle intelligence gathered that the institution started a recruitment exercise late last year and asked for interested persons to apply. After several people had applied, the list was asked to be forwarded to some state authorities not directly connected to the work of NACOB for what was described as ‘vetting’ of the names.

On Monday, Mr. Kan-Dappah said he had not personally asked for any names to be submitted to him but maintained that the list could have been submitted to National Security for vetting.

When asked whether it was the usual practice for National Security to vet applicants seeking to join NACOB before such people were recruited, he said he could not tell whether or not this was the first time such a measure had been adopted.

He however insisted that it was important for National Security to vet people who were to be recruited to a security institution but could not say the same for people who were to be recruited to join an establishment like the Ghana Police Service, when the question was asked in that regard.

Chronicle checks with other Narcotic institutions around the world however show that such institutions have their own recruitment procedures and ways of assessing the potential capabilities of people to be recruited.

In the case of NACOB, it was gathered that this is the first time that other agencies apart from NACOB itself, were getting involved in recruitment into the security institution.

Concerns have also been raised about what Mr. Kan-Dappah described as a Narcotics Unit at the Interior Ministry. The Unit according to our sources, is supposed to be manned by people with expertise in Narcotics issues and normally are made up of employees of the NACOB. But the current situation is different from the norm with issues of nepotism being raised.