On-air vetting of Kan Dapaah bad – Security Analyst

A Fraud and Security Consultant Richard Kumadoe has said the vetting of minister-designate for the National Security, Albert Kan Dapaah should not have been carried live on television.

Mr. Kumado said the answers given to the questions posed by the committee members with regards to operations of institutions like the Bureau of National Investigation(BNI), now known as National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), exposed too much of Ghana’s security arrangement to the entire world, a situation he said, could have been averted by vetting him behind closed doors.

He said this in an interview with Berla Mundi on the New Day show on TV3, Thursday, January 11.

Mr. Kumadoe said “I have worked with the BNI (Bureau of National Investigation) for a number of years, I have practiced Security and Security Intelligence across the globe for years and I think I have a personal issue for him to be vetted publicly, for the sake of the many things he has said which should not be said, for instance, he was pushed and he spoke about some of the internal operations of the BNI.

“The BNI is a secret society organization and just like any other secret service across the globe, the operations and internal operations of the secret service is not disclosed and is not for the public, but for once he has admitted that the invasion of parliament by the military was a coup d’etat”.

He added “My uncle Kan Dapaah, if you’re listening to me, this is what I don’t do, I’m not coming hard on you but I’m just saying that if I was in your shoes I wouldn’t allow me to be vetted publicly.

“Many of the things you say coming into the public domain, will also call for public discussion for which some people might have veered into many extreme positions that is unfortunate”.

During the vetting, Mr Kan-Dapaah said among other things that deliberate plans went into the refocusing of the erstwhile BNI to meet its mandate.

“We thought they were not doing enough in terms of intelligence,” he admitted, observing that on a number of occasions the Bureau was carrying out operations the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service should take.

To that end, he said personnel were brought in to boost the analytical operations of the investigative body aside from its intelligence operations.

He was answering a question posed by Member of Parliament for Ablekuma West Constituency Ursula Owusu-Ekuful on what informed the change of name from BNI to NIB.

“Today, we don’t have the NIB only collecting intelligence, we also have in place a well, good trained team who analyze [intelligence],” he said, adding that the situation culminated in the change of name as well.

“Complete refocusing it is, Hon Chairman,” he stressed.