Three to review Kojo Armah C'ttee Report

Front Page: May 26, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE President has set up a three-member committee to review the report of the Kojo Armah Committee that investigated the missing cocaine at the Exhibits Room at the CID Headquarters.
The committee, which is chaired by Mr Kojo Zwennes, an Accra-based lawyer, is also expected to review the reaction of the internal committee established by the Ghana Police Service and such other related matters it may find relevant and necessary.
A statement signed by the Chief of Staff and Minister for Presidential Affairs, Mr Kwadwo Mpiani, and issued by the Office of the President said the committee was expected to complete its work and submit its report to the President within two weeks.
It did not mention the other members of the committee.
The Kojo Armah Committee was established to investigate and establish the circumstances that led to the loss of cocaine from the Exhibits Room at the CID Headquarters.
Other members of the Kojo Armah Committee were Mr S. J. Afari, Chief Supt Mark Ewuntomah, DCOP Kwesi Nkansah and Chief Supt Jacob Yidana of the Interior Ministry.
The committee could not pinpoint a single person as being responsible for the missing cocaine, saying within its mandate, it could only point to circumstantial evidence, since the door to the Exhibits Room had not been forced open, neither had there been a breakthrough.
It, however, said DSP Patrick Akagbo, the person who kept the key to the room should be held responsible.
It also observed the lack of co-ordination in the investigation of the Prampram cocaine incidence as a result of personality clashes at the CID Headquarters.
In reaction to the report, the Police Administration also set up an internal committee to investigate the conduct of Chief Supt Alphonse Adu-Amankwah, then the Head of the Organised Crime Unit.
A Minister of State at the Ministry of the Interior, Nana Obiri Boahen, however, found the setting up of the police committee as unnecessary because the government had not officially responded to the Kojo Armah Committee Report.
He described the police action as an exercise in futility that would serve no purpose because the Kojo Armah Committee Report was functus officio, meaning that neither the Ministry of the Interior nor the members of that committee could review or conduct further investigations into it or aspects of it unless the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General had advised the government to that effect.