President John Agyekum Kufuor has appointed Dr. Samuel Ghartey Amoo as the National Security Co-ordinator to replace the current Minister for National Security, Mr Francis Poku, who occupied that position from 2003 to last year. The move by the president is in conformity with Act 526, the Security Intelligence Act, which makes it mandatory for the president to appoint a National Security Co-ordinator.

Dr Amoo thus replaces Mr. Poku as the substantive National Security Co-ordinator, which position has been partially vacant with Mr Afari, former BNI Director acting.

Dr Sam G. Amoo is currently the Senior Adviser at the Office of the President. He is also a former Programme Director of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Regional Peace-building Initiatives for Africa, which is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He retired from the UN system in June 2005.

The new National Security Co-ordinator was born at Tarkwa in the Western Region and was educated at the Adisadel College, Cape Coast, the University of Ghana, Legon and the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, USA, where he obtained his Master and Doctorate degrees.

Dr. Amoo’s career spans over decades in various aspects of peace and security, beginning in 1966 as an Infantry Officer in the Ghana Army, and include his service in Ghana’s Foreign Service as a career diplomat from 1972 to 1983.

From 1996 to 1998, he was a Senior Adviser with the Emergency Response Division at the UNDP headquaters in New York. From 1994 to 1996, he was a Senior Political Affairs Officer at the Headquarters of the United Nations Peace-keeping Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo.

He came to that position after his service at the Department of Political Affairs of the UN Secretariat as a Senior Political Affairs Officer with the Research and Analysis Unit, and the Africa Division.