Month: March 2018

Minister for Defense, Dominic Nitiwul has said the former foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh granted soldiers from the United States of America access to Ghana’s facilities in a military cooperation pact agreement in 2015.

According to the Defense Minister he is surprised the members of the previous government, National Democratic Congress (NDC) who signed that agreement with the American government in 2015 are the ones leading a section of the public to kick against approval of the 2018 agreement submitted to Ghana by the United State of America for approval

Mr. Nitiwul indicated that the US Army is not the only foreign military to have accessed Ghana’s facilities as several other foreign troops have had same.

“The access to tour facilities is not new to us. Ever since Hannah Tetteh signed the 2015 agreement Americans and other countries have always had access to our facilities,” the Defence Minister said on Joyfm’s current affairs programme Newsfile Saturday 24th March 2018.

He further disclosed that the 2015 agreement also granted tax exemptions on the importation of equipment and items including food, water and clothing, as well as access to the country’s radio spectrum free of cost to the US military.

“The very things Ghanaians especially the NDC, are speaking against today, they signed it,” he revealed.
The NDC now in opposition, are opposed to an enhanced 2018 agreement which is premised on the one they signed in 2015, insisting it will mortgage the country’s sovereignty to a superpower.

Ranking member on defense and interior, James Agalga, disagreed with the Minister of Defense by saying there was not voting on the issue at the committee level which the Minister suggested on the programme.

“If we had voted, the voting pattern will have been captured, every division in the committee shall be taken by the clerk of the committee asking each member of the committee separately how he desire to vote and recording the votes accordingly “

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

The Defense Minister has revealed that Ghana did not keep a copy of the 2015 military agreement on which the 2018 agreement was based on.

According to the Bimbila Member of Parliament, the embattled Ghana-US military deal that saw a section of Ghanaians protecting to Parliament on Friday to register their displeasure is merely based on a 2015 agreement the West African nation had with the US.

“But unfortunately, Ghana didn’t have a copy of the agreement,” Mr. Nitiwul told on Joy FM’s flagship news analysis show; Newsfile on Saturday.

The Bimbila Member of Parliament said he only got to know of the 2015 agreement when the US referred to it in the 2018 agreement.

“Until they made reference to it I didn’t have any idea…it was when Ghana Armed Forces were meeting with the US to structure this agreement…that is when the Americans gave them a copy of the ‘Hannah Tetteh agreement’. That is how we messed up ourselves as a country,” he said.

“It was not in my handing over notes and I wrote to the Foreign Minister and she checked her archives and she didn’t have it as well,” he said

Mr. Nitiwul reiterated that the current agreement with the US is simply an improvement of previous agreements Ghana has had with the US.

“The agreement tells you in the last paragraph that, once we sign this, it supersedes all other agreements we have with them. They consolidated all the agreements we have with them into one document and have asked us to sign,” he said.

He also argued that the Ghana government and the US amended the original document submitted by the US authorities.

“When you look at the original agreement, it was worse than this,” he said.

“I wrote to all the Ministries and Departments concerned, Foreign Affairs, National Security, Interior, Attorney General, and everyone concerned and they provided me with a technical person to form our team. We took some clauses out and brought some in,” he said.

He also noted that the US agreement is a standard template used worldwide by the US.
Ghana is the only country to have forced the US government to negotiate, he said.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Leader of Government Business, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has hinted that there are two contentious issues to deal with in the Right to Information Bill that has been reintroduce to the House and before the joint committee on Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Communication committee.

As civil society agitated for the passage of the bill it was reintroduce and laid on the floor of the House on 23rd March, 2018 for its first reading before the House went on recess.

The House is expected to return back from recess mid May, Majority Leader stated in an interview with ghanamps.com and noted that by ending of July the Bill should have been taken.

Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu revealed that, the two issues in contention; creation of an office as assembling point to receive all relevant information, and which issue to qualify as a National Security Information.

The herculean task of burdening one office accessing information or they giving you directions to where to get the needed information, which will result in all the Ministries having to establish information unit within so that one can go there and seek the relevant information, he said.

He further noted that the second issue of contention was which information qualify to be a matter of National Security Information it became contentious.

“We will need to be clear in our mind, not that government will be giving information with the right hand and taking it back with the left hand everything that was the issue in the previous bill that was contentious”, he lamented.

What information should be given out to people of this country. Looking for information there are two major things we should look at otherwise it may derail the entire access we want to grant to citizens looking for information, he added.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com

It has been revealed that the Minority on the committee of Defense and Interior had majority of its members on the Parliamentary committee that recommended the Ghana-US military agreement that came for consideration at the committee level.

Minister of Defense, Dominic Nitiwul made this revelations known on Joy Fm’s weekend current affairs programme news file that the Minority had 14 MPs on the committee when the Majority had 10 members present at the committee.

He stated that the 24-member committee scrutinized the deal thoroughly before recommending it to the House.

“We finished the whole deliberation, we sat from about 9:30 am to almost 9: 00 pm and analyzed it clause by clause. With 14 NDC members and 10 NPP members then the committee took the decision to recommend it to parliament for adaption,” he said.

Ranking member on Defense and Interior, James Agalga, that although the Minority members were more in numbers on the committee, the decision to recommend the agreement to the plenary was that of the NPP members.

“We reached the recommendation because there was a deadlock and we as members belonging to minority after raising reservations said if you the Minority wanted a recommendation, it will stand in the name of the majority NPP,” he said.

He noted also that there was no voting at the committee level.

“He Nitiwul gives the impression that we sat on the committee and the majority members of the NDC voted and recommended and that is not true,” he said.

“If we had voted the voting pattern would have been captured,” he added.

He was emphatic that he led his NDC members to raise objections.

A private legal practitioner, Ace Ankomah in his opinion said since the NDC had Majority on the Committee, they could have easily quashed the deal at the committee level.

“You failed by not demanding the vote,” he told the ranking member on Defense and Interior.

“If there is no unanimity then you have an opportunity because the majority is now minority so you demand a voice vote and on account of your vote…you could have thrown this agreement out,” he said.

Parliament has since ratified the agreement although the minority members staged a walkout amid fierce arguments.

By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com