After Sacking Damoah Military To Start Recruitment

After deliberately embarking on a crusade of lies against the 2008/09 botched recruitment exercise, led in chief by the Defence Minister, Lt Gen Smith, and his incoherent Director of Public Relations, Col Nibo, set up a bogus Board of Inquiry (BOI) with the sole aim of releasing Col Damoah, the then Director of Personnel Administration and which eventually saw its President, Col Musah been rewarded as Defence Adviser of the Ghana Armed Forces to the United Kingdom, the Ghana Armed Forces are to recruit personnel for training at long last.

With the cheap excuse that the general public complained bitterly about the 2008/09 recruitment process, the Minister and his cohorts could not prove to the whole nation, the names of the complainants, nature of complaints, when the complaint was made, to whom the complaints were made, records of receipt of complaints, officer in charge of complaints and evidence provided by complainants and the of nature of complaints.

With Col Damoah gone, the ‘agent of poverty’ Associate Professor John Mills has finally authorized the Ghana Armed Forces to recruit personnel to commence training in July 2010.

The advertisement for the recruit training is to be made any moment in November 2009 for the regional recruitment exercises to be undertaken simultaneously in all the ten regions by February 2010.

It will be recalled that the training of the 420 Army Potential Recruits was suspended in January 2009 and finally cancelled by the Minister of Defence, Lt Gen Smith.

In an answer to an urgent question in the name of Hon. Major Derek Oduro of Nkoranza South, General Smith said on 10 June 2009 in parliament that the training of 1200 Potential Recruits selected in March 2008 had been cancelled while the money earmarked for the 2009 recruitment exercise was to be used for rehabilitation of the Training Centres of the Ghana Armed Forces.

General Smith indicated also that a Committee had been set up to review the recruitment process, procedures, academic and professional qualifications.

This paper is reliably informed that the Committee headed by Brigadier General Daniel Prah (who was kokufully promoted on 12th May 2009) had completed its work and submitted its report to the appropriate authorities.

Consequently, there is a ‘face saving’ report upon which the NDC Administration can rely to authorize of personnel into the Ghana Armed Forces.

As for the rehabilitation exercises at the Recruit Training Centres, the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence, Interior and Security may conduct announced and unannounced visits to Shai Hills, Tema, Sekondi and Takoradi Recruit Training Schools to confirm or deny it.

What is certain is also that, the resumption of the recruitment exercise in the Ghana Armed Forces is to provide a justification for and a diversionary strategy to cover up the illegal training of P/NDC soldiers at Asutsuare and other locations. Once the general recruitment exercise gets underway, the Ministers of Defence and Interior would always say that the training at Asutsuare is part of the normal routine Armed Forces Recruit Training Programme.

This reporter will follow the process from the beginning to the end and cross check the names, identities and qualifications of all potential recruits from the application stages to the recruit training in a very transparent and fair manner.

Credible military sources have it that lists of NDC supporters/sympathizers have already been submitted to various corridors of NDC power including the Castle, Castle Annex (Blue Gate), General Headquarters at Burma Camp and the Minister of Defence.

Already the Minister of Defence has sounded a note of caution that he does not accept a ‘no-response’ for any requests that he makes. The Service Chiefs are therefore obliged to honor all his requests without fail or else face the music.

The lists submitted from various NDC Ministers, MPs, functionaries, activists and likes have been given to the Minister of Defence, Lt Col Attachie, Brigadier General EC Quist, Air Vice Marshal Dovlo, Col EL Lawson and Col Senchim.