How Kufuor Saved A Near @50 Mess

Twenty million Dollars was the amount voted for the preparations necessary for a successful celebration of the nation’s independence anniversary. The preparations obviously included the acquisition of accommodation for dignitaries who were invited into the country. The day for the celebration was March 6, and invitations had been extended to several heads of state and governments and other dignitaries.

The Ghana @50 Secretariat headed by Dr. Charles Wereko Brobby and chaired by Chief of Staff and Presidential Affairs Minister, Kwadwo Mpiani, had acquired enough of the latest models of Jaguars, BMWs, Benz, Chryslers and Peugeots which they explained would be used to convey invited dignitaries. They made adequate preparations for cars, but not the same attention was given to getting the necessary accommodation facilities ready for dignitaries who were to arrive and for whom the expensive cars were procured. It was the night of March 4 and the dignitaries started arriving.

By the following day when more of such dignitaries were to arrive, it became apparent that not enough preparations had been made to accommodate them and a bizarre scene of embarrassment was already rearing its ugly head. Embassies of some invited dignitaries sensed the looming accommodation problems and got a message to their invited officials to reconsider their decisions to honour their invitations to participate in the independence anniversary. State protocol was at a loss and officials of the Ghana@50 Secretariat found themselves caught in a tight corner. This was where the President of the Republic, His Excellency, John Agyekum Kufour stepped in to save what would have been an @50 and a lifelong embarrassment for the nation.

Chronicle’s castle sources narrated that, the worried president virtually turned himself into a state protocol officer and personally went round some hotels in town and what the sources described as, “other places,” to make sure that accommodation was found for dignitaries who almost got stranded. “Look, the President himself went out to look for accommodation and that day I believe he went to his house at around 12 midnight. I don’t really know what happened but if the president had not intervened there would have been a disaster,” a source close to state protocol disclosed to the paper.

At one point, the situation became so threatening that, some official buildings at Cantoments that had not been used for sometime now were visited for assessment. Some personnel who were sent to do some cleaning at one of those buildings, opened the doors and realized there were not even beds in them and thus had to abandon their mission. Sources say some police officers were also detailed to do some scrubbing in some rooms when the situation was becoming almost unbearable.

Efforts to talk to Mr. Andy Awuni, Presidential Press Secretary on the matter and specifically the involvement of the President in the accommodation arrangements were not successful but Mr. Kofi Owusu Bempa, who answered a call to Mr. Awuni’s phone, said the paper had written about the issue in its yesterday edition and wondered what additional information or clarification was being sought. After some explanation that the clarification that the paper was seeking was about what might have happened to cause the problem to the extent that the president himself had to intervene, Mr. Bempa who said he worked in the office of the Press Secretary, took the number of this reporter and the paper’s office line and said he was to do some checks and get back to the paper.

But as at the time of going to press he had not called. Calls to different lines in State protocol offices yesterday were not answered. Chronicle’s state protocol sources said the problem arose as a result of misunderstanding between the outfit of State protocol and the Ghana@50 secretariat. “The @50 people thought they could do everything and when they realized that they rather had to fall on State Protocol it was already too late. So I don’t think we have to blame state protocol too much,” the source said.

Additionally, most of the buildings that were being put up at La Wireless to accommodate some of the visiting dignitaries were not completed possibly due to what contractors working on the project termed, the non-availability of funds.