Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday December 22, 2010
A FORMER Minister of Interior and Defence under the Kufuor administration, Albert Kan Dapaah says he is considering legal action against Ben Ndego, former Deputy Director of Operations at the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), who made comments to the effect that Mr. Dapaah may have known something about the narcotic drugs trade in the country.
“I have since referred Mr. Ndego’s comments to my lawyers for study and the need for advice. I however find it imperative that whilst awaiting my lawyer’s advice, I take the necessary steps to clear the air regarding the comments made about me by Mr. Ndego,” he said
Ben Ndego had chastised the ex-minister for not showing enough commitment in fighting the drug trade when he called into a live news analysis programme, ‘Newsfile’ on Joy FM in Accra on Saturday to comment on the Wikileaks reports about the narcotics drug situation in Ghana.
Mr. Dapaah who is currently the Member of Parliament (MP) for Afigya Sekyere in the Ashanti region in a statement said, “I wish to state for the record that I have not personally encountered Mr. Ndego and remain at a loss as to what his motivations are in his latest statements as they are clearly intended to drag my name into matters connected with narcotic drugs in an irredeemable way.”
He said contrary to Mr. Ndego’s assertions, he (Mr. Dapaah) had not recruited any person whether from his constituency or elsewhere for NACOB; he also added that he had never been in charge of recruitments at NACOB.
“There is nobody in the management or senior staff team from my constituency. There are about five recruits from my constituency. They all went through the NACOB recruitment process. The recruitment is not done by the ministry but by NACOB. Recruits are junior staff and would have no role, let alone control management of the organization as implied by Mr. Ndego.”
Mr. Dapaah said it could not be true that Ghana’s fight against the narcotics drug trade retrogressed under his tenure as Minister of Interior when Mr. Ndego and his boss Col. Akuaku were replaced at NACOB.
He said during his tenure, he only had oversight responsibility over NACOB but the operational strategies and day-to-day operations were not controlled by the ministry adding, “Indeed, as the minister, I never participated in the operational activities of NACOB.”
He explained that situational reports were sent directly to the National Security Secretariat and were not even copied to the Minister of Interior saying, “Mr. Ndego knows about these arrangements and should be the last person to make such statements. To accuse me of any person’s operational lapses is therefore untenable and callous.”
He said the circumstances under which Mr. Ndego and his boss were asked to proceed on leave were matters of public record and could not be trivialized in anyway conceivable adding, “I wish to state on record that I do not wine or dine with drug barons.”
He said he had never been sponsored by any drug baron for any political office contrary to what he called the “insinuations of Mr. Ndego” and challenged him to produce any proof.
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