US defence agreement had worse demands - Nitiwul

The Defense Minister, Dominic Nitiwul claims the original document on Ghana and US defence agreement had worse demands.

According to him, the Ghana government and the US amended the original document submitted by the US authorities upon several meetings.

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

Speaking on Joy FM’s news analysis programme, Newsfile on Saturday, Mr. Nitiwu said as compared to other countries where similar agreements were signed, Ghana was able to bargain leading to its current state.

He added the Ambassador of US to Ghana, Mr. Robert Porter Jackson was even surprised to see how Ghana was able to bargain.

Elaborating on the agreement, the Minister said the agreement is merely based on a 2015 agreement Ghana had with the US.

He said he did not find a copy of the 2015 military agreement on which the 2018 agreement has been based in his handing over notes.

“But unfortunately, Ghana didn’t have a copy of the agreement. 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

He added that he only got to know of the 2015 agreement when the US referred to it in the 2018 agreement.

He said Ghana messed up as a country under the 'Hannah Tetteh 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.

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.