The Kojo Armah Committee Report - Five Policemen commended

Page 3: May 21, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE names of five policemen have come up for commendation for the role they played in the arrest of a cocaine suspect at Prampram in 2006.
The Kojo Armah Committee that investigated the missing cocaine at the Exhibits Room at the CID Headquarters, while making the commendation, however, reprimanded the Commander of the Organised Crime Unit (OCU), Chief Supt Alphonse Adu-Amankwah, for his lack of co-operation in the matter.
The five policemen are Sgt Martin Opoku Darko, Cpl Emmanuel Adaba, Cpl Nsobila Nyaaba, Constable J. K. Appiah and Cpl Nicholas Adotsuklu, now deceased, all of the Ningo Police.
They effected the arrest of Kenneth Ugah, the suspect, and escorted the vehicle he was driving, with registration number GW 1243 X, to the Prampram Police Station.
According to the report of the committee, those policemen used their initiative appropriately and risked their lives to lay ambush till about 3.00 a.m. before the vehicle driven by Ugah arrived.
It said the private vehicle belonging to one of the policemen was nearly run over by Ugah’s vehicle, while they did not allow Ugah to have his way by arresting him without compromise.
“For these reasons, the panel recommends a reward as an incentive for such efforts in the future,” the report added.
On Chief Supt Adu-Amankwah, the report observed that he did not fully co-operate with the former Director-General (D-G) of the CID, Mr David Asante-Apeatu.
“He did not fully co-operate with his boss, the former Director-General, CID, in the matter of handling the Prampram arrests,” it noted.
It said copies of letters tendered showed that except for one letter to the Ghana Immigration Service, all the letters were signed in the name of the director-general of the CID.
“It appeared to the panel, from other evidence, that it was only an administrative procedure and that it was very possible that the D-G himself did not see the letters before they were dispatched and same was confirmed by the former CID boss that he did not see many of them,” the report said.
It indicated that there had been personality clashes between Chief Supt Adu-Amankwah and Mr Asante-Apeatu, at one level, and between Mr Asante-Apeatu and the IGP, at another.
It said those clashes affected the management of the CID Headquarters, resulting in the non co-ordination of issues there.
According to the report, that made Chief Supt Adu-Amankwah do “his own thing” as Head of the OCU.
It stressed that there had been a certain breakdown of communication which made it difficult for the CID Headquarters, as an institution, to have total control of the investigations.
It said Chief Supt Adu-Amankwah was also not forthright in his responses, especially in respect of his relationship with his former boss, the D-G of the CID.
“The panel also finds the conduct of Chief Supt Adu-Amankwah in respect of the Exhibits Room, the keys and the custody of the exhibits very unprofessional,” it added.
The committee further recommended that a service enquiry be instituted into the conduct of all the policemen who visited the CID Headquarters at odd times without reasonable explanation, some of them with friends, including white persons and women.
It also recommended that disciplinary action be taken against the armed guards who abandoned their posts while on duty at the Exhibits Room on the sixth floor of the CID Headquarters for personal reasons.