C’ttee to review GAF’s participation in UN operations
The participation of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations is to be reviewed and streamlined.
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A technical committee to carry out the exercise has been set up by the Ministry of Defence, on the orders of President John Dramani Mahama.
The 10-member committee is to formulate a policy for accepting offers for participating in new missions and review the equipment procurement system and standardisation.
It is also expected to determine the procedure for requisition for funds from the GAF Peace Support Operation Accounts and levels of authorisation, as well as review sources of funding.
The committee, chaired by Brigadier General Kwame Oppong-Otchere (retd), is again mandated to determine the possibility of utilising part of the funds as internally generated revenue to support critical and emergency needs of the GAF.
It is to submit its report to the Minister of Defence by April 1, 2015.
Other members of the committee are Mr Fritz Baffour, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence and the Interior; Mr Alidu Fuseini, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Defence; Brigadier General Asamoah Kweku Yeboah, the Director-General of International Peace Support Operations of the GAF, and Col Moses Gyeke Asante, the Director of Legal Affairs of the GAF.
The rest are Col Nicholas Kwame Kporku, the Director of Army Peace Support Operations; Group Captain Charles Addico, the Director of Air Force Peace Support Operations; Mr Andrews Kufe, a Deputy Controller and Accountant General; Mr Henry Tachie-Menson, a senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mr Emmanuel Edumadze Mensah, a senior official of the Ministry of Finance.
Defence Minister
Commissioning the committee, the Minister of Defence, Dr Benjamin Kunbuor, said Ghana had over the past four decades strongly contributed to UN peacekeeping operations around the world with troops and equipment.
Currently, the GAF are providing formed troops, medical and aviation units in five UN peacekeeping missions and staff officers/military observers in nine other missions.
The minister said there was the need to ensure the maintenance of the professionalism, courage and commitment to duty that the GAF had earned over the years under the UN flag in Africa, the Middle East, the Far East and Europe.
Besides, he said, many concerns had been raised over the financing and financial obligations of peacekeeping accounts.
“This is against the backdrop of the migration of UN operations from Dry lease to the Wet lease system which involves a huge capital outlay. There is, therefore, the need to ensure value for money in the acquisition of equipment for our various theatres,” he said.
Dr Kunbuor said those concerns had come up strongly in the audit reports on the procurement, acquisition and deployment of military equipment to the various mission areas.
Chief of Defence Staff
The Chief of the Defence Staff, Vice-Admiral Mathew Quarshie, said many issues kept emerging in peacekeeping operations.
For instance, he said, it was appropriate to look at the number of troops that the country would have to send on peacekeeping operations, as against the number of troops that must be kept for home security.
Brig. Gen. Oppong-Otchere, for his part, said growing demand in the world required that the GAF’s peacekeeping operations be reviewed regularly.