Minister Removes DCE At Gun Point

............He leads Rambo-style Commando Raid
The Western Regional Minister Joseph Aidoo, last Friday March 9, led soldiers and police to Half Assini, the capital of Jomoro District, and forcefully removed the dismissed District Chief Executive, Ketiboah Blay, from his office and residence.

According to an eye witness around mid day, just as the executive council meeting of the District Assembly scheduled for that day was about to start, the atmosphere was broken with sounds of police sirens.

In a rambo-style raid, the office buildings were circled by soldiers and police armed to the teeth with Aidoo at the head of command and ordered the DCE to hand over and leave office immediately. After the raid at the office, the convey left the office buildings and followed the DCE to the residency where the former District Chief Executive was ordered at gun-point to pack his belongings.

“The whole scene was pathetic and scary. Imagine a man who has been the source of authority and power in the District serving his country, being treated like that,” an assemblyman who witnessed the raid pleading anonymity, told Weekend Agenda.

In two interviews with the minister, one on telephone and another in person in Parliament House in Accra, the Minister did not take kindly to the description of the drama by Agenda. But he confirmed the story.

He said as Regional Minister, he was in Half Assini on that fateful Friday in the company of some Regional Security Council members only to deliver the DCE’s termination letter in person.

The Regional Minister explained that it became necessary for him to personally lead the delegation to deliver the dismissal letter because after the President had announced the dismissed the former DCE granted an interview to Skyy FM, in Takoradi, and said he had not received his dismissal letter and that he, was not appointed on the Radio.

Aidoo told the Agenda that the dismissed DCE had also said that the NPP government was behaving like the NDC in power which was known to have used the Radio to dismiss state officials.

According to Aidoo the DCE had intimated on the radio programme that he was waiting for his termination letter in his office, hence the decision by the REGSEC to deliver the note.

Aidoo said that he needed to do that because the man (referring to the estranged DCE) was very intransigent. “There was no force on him initially compelling him to leave. The DCE was to vacate office after a smooth hand-over but his intrasigience called for a radical approach,” the Minister said.

Aidoo told Agenda that earlier he had had a meeting with the District Co-ordinating Director and had directed that the DCE should be allowed to use his office, official vehicle and the residency until he was ready to hand over. But as the discussion was going on, word came to him that the DCE was on the air castigating everybody. “ I had no option than to take a different stance. He compelled me to change my position…..It is true that I asked him to leave the office.” Aidoo confirmed.

The minister said he gave him up to one o’clock in the afternoon. “But strangely enough, Blay sarcastically told me that if I wanted my key there and then, he was prepared to give it to me.”

When Public Agenda asked whether there is no other means of informing the DCE to leave office, the Minister said DCEs were nominated by the President on the Radio, before they were sent to the Assembly in accordance with the Constitution to be vetted and confirmed by assembly members before appointment letters were handed over to them. Even then, appointment letters were not issued immediately.

The minister explained that it is the Regional Minister who normally hand over the appointment letters to them. Invariably, radio announcements come before the appointment letter. By the same token, their removals could also be by radio announcement, the minister explained.

According to the Minister as the dismissed DCE was bragging that he was still awaiting the official letter, he wrote to the Minister for Local Government who dispatched the termination letter to him.

Aidoo said, when he received the letter he personally, drove down to Half Assini to give it out to the DCE. According to Aidoo, he had earlier written to the DCE himself but Blay insisted that he did not recognise the Regional Minister as the appropriate authority to write on such matters.

“As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong to go and give him his letter of termination. After all, he, the minister, represents the President in the Region.