Modify mode of recruitment into Armed Forces

Accra, April 14, GNA - A former Ghana Air Force Officer in charge of Administration and Welfare, Squadron Leader George Tagoe (Rtd), on Monday suggested a modification in the mode of recruitment of candidates for the officers' course and training.

After an exhaustive narration of his experience as an administrator in both military and civilian establishments, arrest and manhandling by junior officers, detention and four-and-a-half years' imprisonment, Squadron Leader Tagoe said qualification into the course should go beyond testimonials to background character search of the applicants.

Squadron Leader Tagoe told the National Reconciliation Commission that a number of coups d'etats and the consequent harrowing experiences in post-independent Ghana were due to a breakdown of discipline in the Ghana Armed Forces.

He insisted that only tested and well-mannered, loyal and disciplined candidates should be accepted into ! the Forces for training to prevent coups d'etats.

Squadron Leader Tagoe referred to the handing over notes of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and said care must be taken not to recruit people with dual nationality into the Ghana's Forces for fear of divided loyalty and taking over of the country.

Squadron Leader Tagoe described the breakdown of discipline in times of coups d'etats, during which junior officers subjected their seniors to brutalities as "one of the most disgraceful things we have seen in our Armed Forces.

"This is wrong. It is never done anywhere in the Service, neither here nor abroad," Squadron Leader Tagoe said.

"After 1963, all candidates recruited into the Ghana Armed Forces were contaminated. Something was wrong with the recruitment."

When Commissioner Professor Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, reminded Squadron Leader Tagoe that the 1966 coup was organised by senior officers, and it appeared he was calling back for a return of the British to recruit and train the Ghanaian military, Squadron Leader Tagoe replied that it was unfortunate that some senior officers, trained by the British were involved in that coup.

Squadron Leader Tagoe agreed that it was not good for serving military officers to be seconded to civilian establishments, adding that it bred jealousy. At best there should be better remuneration for the military personnel.

They must stay in the barracks, and "not even come to town in their uniforms", he said. Squadron Leader Tagoe said it was surprising that there were a number of soldiers with records of insurgency still at post in the Forces and prayed that the Armed Forces must be examined and cleaned of such soldiers.