Ghana Had No Copy Of 2015 Defence Deal—Nitiwul

The Minister of Defence, Mr Dominic Nitiwul has given reasons for Ghanaians to question the transition process between the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the present government in 2016.

According to him, copies of the 2015 Defence Cooperation Agreement signed by the former Foreign Affairs Minister, Madam Hanna Tetteh was never available on Ghanaian soil.

A recent 2018 Ghana-US military contract saw Parliament, advocacy groups and even the general public split as they performed an intellectual surgery on the tenets of the agreement.

The 2018 agreement according to reports is premised on a 2015 agreement.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Newsfile, last Saturday, Mr Nitiwul said, “…Once we signed this agreement with the Americans and they had a copy, Ghana simply did not keep any copy neither was Ghana aware because it was not in my handing over notes, it was not in the handing over notes of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Armed forces didn’t have it. So clearly, we didn’t know we had signed these agreements.”

He continued: “I wrote to the foreign minister, she searched through her archives they didn’t have it, it was when the armed forces were meeting with the Americans over how to structure this thing, a month ago, in Germany that the Americans gave them a copy of the Hanna Tetteh agreement. That is how we messed up ourselves as a country.”

This damning revelation pits against the Presidential Transition Act 2012 (Act 854).

The Act establishes arrangements for the political transfer of administration from an out-going democratically elected government to an incoming regime.

Per Mr Nitiwul assertion, the premise on which the embattled deal stands today was not captioned in the handing over notes of previous governments and neither was the present government privy to the 2015 deal upon their assumption of office.

It could be recalled that when the NPP took over in 2017, there had been reports that the transition process had been skewed as the two major political parties accused each other of mistrust.

Public officials in the NDC were alleged to have ‘doctored’ their handing over notes while others were reported to have shredded classified documents.

All Agreements In Full Force

In another vein, the defence minister has argued that all military agreements with the US are still in force—debunking claims by the minority in parliament that the 2015 deal had expired.

“when I had received this agreement, they have made some copious references to previous agreements which are in force in 1998 (which is still in force) we signed an agreement according to them in 2001 which is still in force, in 2000 which is still force, in 2015 which is still in force,” Mr Nitiwul noted.

According to him, the current agreement supersedes all other agreement that Ghana has with the US.

“So, they have boxed up every agreement that we have had with them into one document and asking us sign,” the Minister added.

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]