Nuclear Scientist appears before NRC

Ho, Jan, 26, GNA - Dr Winfred Kwame, Marcoor-Tsey, who said he was a Nuclear Scientist told the NRC sitting in Ho on Monday that as a Nuclear Scientist he was compelled to take up teaching appointment at Mawuli School because the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), his former employers refused to re-engage him after further studies abroad. He said he left Ghana in December 1976 when he was an employee of the GAEC to pursue a two-year Masters Degree on study leave without pay. Dr Marcoor-Tsey said he however, stayed on in the United States of America to pursue his doctorate degree and sought to return after 12 years.

He said the Inter-Governmental Committee on Migration (ICM) of the US had undertaken to finance his return and resettlement home provided his former employers were ready to re-engage him.

Dr Marcoor-Tsey said he had to return to the country on his own to pursue his re-engagement and that all correspondence from the GAEC had ceased.

Back home and with his failure to be re-engaged by the GAEC, he lost the IMC package and other benefits which included a 20,000-dollar resettlement grant.

He prayed the NRC to impress upon the GAEC to pay him the amount he lost as a result of its inability to re-engage him. Dr Marcoor-Tsey said he was advised by friends not to return to the country after two years as required by the terms of his study leave because of the alleged unfavourable political climate then in the country.

Professor Henrietta Mensa Bonsu, said the terms of the agreement on his study leave required him to come back after two years and that the GAEC had the first option to re-engage him and not obliged to employ him. She explained that his attitude had put the GAEC in a difficult situation by his failure to honour his part of the agreement. Another petitioner Mr Samuel Kwame Adablah, prayed the NRC to prevail on the Ho District Assembly to pay compensation to the Adablah family for the 24 years it unlawfully sited a public toilet and a rubbish dump on the family land.

He also appealed to the Commission to get the Assembly to remove the toilet and rubbish dumb on the land because, it was very close to their home posed nuisance and health hazards.

According to Mr Adablah, the District Environmental Health Superintendent had inspected the site and recommended the removal of the toilet and refuse dump.

He claimed that the land, belonging to the people of Klefe and situated between Ho-Bankoe and Anagokodzi was bought by his father in the 1930s. Mr Adablah said sometime in January 1978, some workmen entered the land and claimed that they were working for the then District Council, which was about to build the toilet and refuse dump. He said his late father and later his children sent several petitions to the District Assembly on the matter but received no response alleging that, it could be because they were settlers.

I was discharged for no reason- Gbegble

Ho, Jan. 26, GNA- Ex-Sergeant Gilbert Kwashivi Gbegble of the Border Guards on Monday alleged before the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) sitting at Ho that though he served conscientiously and was qualified, he was refused commissioning as an officer. He said he was also invited from the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) where he had just entered to pursue a degree in law and sociology and discharged. Mr Gbegble said he went through the course on his own and now serves the Ghana Education Service (GES) as a Senior Superintendent in the Ketu District.

He alleged that fairness was compromised during the interviews for commissioning.

Mr Gbegble said he went to the university after he personally got verbal consent of the late Brigadier Utuka, then Commander of the Border Guards and therefore expected that his application for study leave would be granted as a matter of course.

He started working as a Police Officer but opted for the Border Guards in 1972, said Utuka feared that as an operative of the Intelligence Squad of the Border Guards, his presence on campus at that time was not in his interest as Utuka was head of operations of the Supreme Military Council (SMC).

He in a second petition, he said a combined team of soldiers and CEPS officers searched his family house at Penyi in December 1992 looking for arms.

Mr Gbegble said his mother had a shock and died in the evening of the search.

He said the allegation about the arms were concocted by Mr Paul Damalie, a CEPS stations head at Akanu at that time, who saw him with Major Quashigah and Mr Cyril Mensah, then Sector Commander of CEPS at Aflao.

Lt-General Emmanuel Erskine said academic qualification was not the sine qua non for being commissioned into the armed forces and that there were other qualities to be assessed by the board. He said Mr Gbegble's allegation that some of those who sat on the board at the time compromised their positions was a serious indictment and therefore, promised that an investigation would be concluded. On Mr Gbegble's point of being denied study leave to school, Lt Erskine said there were regulations governing such issues and advised people to study those regulations and stop being unnecessarily bitter over certain issues.

"No matter how ambitious you are, you have to follow regulations," he stated.

Professor Florence Dolphyne told the petitioner, that "you don't proceed to something for which permission was not granted." Uborr Delaful Labal asked Gbegble who appeared and sounded very bitter what benefits his anger has brought him.

Mr Gbegble replied "If you are honest and sincere and people are corrupt it pains a lot."

Uborr Labal then counselled that: "If you allowed people's behaviour to cause you to become angry unduly you hurt yourself." "I want you to live long, you have to find a way to rid yourself of the anger," He advised.

However Mr Gbegble retorted: "I am sincere and honest, I didn't want anybody to bully me." 26 Jan 04