The Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul has disclosed Ghana does not have a copy of the 2015 military agreement it signed with the United States.
The 2015 agreement was signed by former Foreign Affairs Minister Hanna Tetteh.
His revelations come barely 24 hours after Parliament ratified the controversial 2018 defence cooperation agreement between Ghana and the US.
It comes after the Minority side stormed out of the Law Chamber Friday evening, leaving the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs to rubberstamp the pact late in the night before House rose for recess.
“…In fact, the base document that they [US] used in preparing this [2018] agreement is the agreement that Ghana signed with them in 2015, then Hanna Tetteh she signed that agreement,” he stated on News File Saturday.
He added: “But Samson [host] unfortunately, Ghana didn’t have the copy of our agreement. The Ministry of Defence did not have the agreement, the Armed Forces did not have the agreement, [and] the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not have the Hanna Tetteh agreement. It was the Americans who actually gave us that agreement. So once we signed this agreement with the Americans and they kept a copy, Ghana simply did not take any copy neither was Ghana aware.”
The Walk out
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) MPs staged the walk after the caucus leader; Haruna Iddrisu made his side’s reservations over the agreement known on the floor.
The agreement was brought before the House for consideration and ratification after the joint-committee on Defence and Interior, Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs of Parliament gave it a greenlight.
This is despite massive public protest against the deal which many including the largest opposition described as “dangerous” and a sale of Ghana’s sovereignty.
In his walk out speech on the floor of Parliament, Mr. Iddrisu warned that the approval of the agreement would open Ghana to major risk of terrorism and its consequences thus “we, the NDC are unable to continue with this process.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
