Another Committee has been set up by the President, John Agyekum Kufuor, to review the report of the Kojo Armah Committee.

The three-member committee is under the chairmanship of Mr Kojo Zwenes.

The Committee is also charged with the responsibility to review the reaction of the Internal Committee established by the Ghana Police Service and such other related matters the Committee may find relevant and necessary.

According to a statement issued by the Office of the President on Saturday May 24, 2008 and signed by Mr Kwadwo Mpiani, Chief of Staff and Minister for Presidential Affairs, the Committee is expected to complete its work and submit its report to the President within two weeks.

The Kojo Armah Committee was established after checks conducted at the Police Narcotics Exhibit Room revealed that drugs which had been placed at the premises of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the police service, had been taken away and replaced with other substances.

The Kojo Armah Committee was tasked to investigate and establish the circumstances that led to the loss and find those involved.

The Committee was made up of the following members, S. A. Afari, Mark Ehuntomah, DCOP Kwesi Nkansah and J. J. Yidana of the Interior Ministry.

On the day it was Submitting its findings, Chairman of the Committee said, it could not pinpoint a single person as being responsible for the missing cocaine, saying within the mandate of the committee, they could only point to circumstantial evidence since the door to the exhibit room was not forced open, and neither was there a breakthrough.

The Committee however, pointed at DSP Patrick Akagbo as a key suspect because he kept the key to the exhibits room. It however admitted that the officer knew little about organized crime.

The Committee also identified lack of coordination in the department which it attributed to personality clashes between the former Director-General of the CID and the Head of Organized Crime Unit.

The committee which sat for three months took oral and written statements from about 43 people including the Inspector General of Police and some civilians.

The Police Administration, however, came out to rebuff suggestions of poor coordination by the Kojo Armah committee.

The Director of Police Public Affairs, Deputy Superintendent of Police Kwesi Fori argued that it is worrying that the committee failed to acknowledge the coordination that led to the arrest of some drug dealers and the impounding of a large amount of drugs at Prampram in the Greater Accra region. (It was some of these drugs that went missing in the custody of the police).

The police insisted there is a high level of co-ordination and cooperation at the highest level among its operational level.

It is these disagreements that have led to the setting up of yet another committee to study the report of the Kojo Armah Committee.

Mr. Kojo Armah, who chaired the Committee is the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) Member of Parliament for Evale-Gwira Constituency.


By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi