GH¢8000 EACH FOR 182 COMMANDO GRADUATES
*Top trainees get fridges, TV, others
*Given accommodation at Nkrumah Flats
*Arnold Quainoo, Dzirasah, Special Guests
True to TODAY's report last week, some 182 Commando Trainees indeed passed out at a very quiet ceremony held at the Asutsuare Military Camp in the Eastern Region with each graduand being richer by GH¢8000 after the event. In all about GH¢1.5million was spent on the 182 Commando graduates.
The amount was offered the graduands as a gesture of golden welcome into the Ghana Armed Forces after excelling and scaling the three months intensive exercise and also to help them kick-start their new lives on a sound footing.
Although about 800 trainees begun the exercise, majority of them could not stand the tough and rugged nature of the training and had to leave mid-stream.
Graduands, who were judged to have excelled above expectations, were given television sets, fridges, gas cookers and microwaves. Jobs for the 182 were guaranteed immediately after the graduation. They were instantly integrated into the 64 Battalion Units of the Ghana Armed Forces and have since begun work.
The occasion, the paper discovered from the parade grounds, was devoid of pomp and pageantry that often characterize such events. It was done secretly with family members and friends of the graduands barred from the event.
Instead it was reduced to a pure partisan NDC event with adherents clad in the colours of the ruling party fully represented. They included members of the NDC youth forum-the youth wing of the NDC; some top party members and some gurus of the National Security and the Bureau of the National Investigations.
The occasion was also graced by some top government officials. Prominent among them were Council of State member, Lt. General Arnold Quainoo and former MP and 1st Deputy Speaker, of Parliament Hon. Ken Dzirasah.
The new Commandos, authoritative search by TODAY has confirmed, have been offered homes at the Kwame Nkrumah Flats at Latebiokoshie in Accra. The paper discovered that last Saturday's nasty incident at the Nkrumah Flats was as a result of the force ejection of the sitting tenants by the National Security to be replaced by the new Commandos.
The militant-like ejection was led by Emmanuel Amedeka, the Security Head of the Jubilee House and a known terror within the National Security apparatus. He was virtually left loose and dealt ruthlessly with any occupant who dared questioned his actions.
TODAY further gathered that one Akuffo, a man, tenants of the Nkrumah Flats described as a staff of the Ministry of Water Resource, Works and Housing, assisted by some police men led a group of Zongo youth to aid Amedeka to ransack their flats and eject the occupants.
“We were doing our normal duties when they arrived. They told us that the Nkrumah Flats is a National Security Zone so everybody should move out with his or her belongings. Any one who dared to question them was manhandled and beaten up,” one of the victims who spoke on condition of anonymity told TODAY.
He continued…“one of the women here, a half-cast lady, who challenged and exchanged words with them, was hit with a police stick and blood started oozing out of her head…
“The Zongo Boys who are believed to be NDC supporters told us point blank that NPP did it in 2001 so, it is pay back time,” the anonymous victim revealed.
TODAY also learnt that the Zongo Youth and the Police will again storm the Nkrumah Flats for yet another ejection exercise on Saturday, 21st November, 2009.
The decision to give the flats to the new Commando graduands, the paper discovered, was premised on belief within the national security apparatus that the occupants are members of the NPP who were offered the flats by the former Kufuor administration, not on merit by their mere association with the NPP. .
TODAY's discovery about the status of the new graduands comes in contrast with the explanation offered by the Interior Minister that the new trainees would be beefed up with the Police/Military patrol teams to combat armed robbery in the country.
It also raises questions about the truthfulness of the answers provided by the Public Affairs Directorate of the Ghana Armed Forces on the subject. The Public Affairs Director of the Ghana Armed Forces, Col. E.W.K. Nibo, alluded to the fact that the trainees would be part of the high-profiled VIP wing of the presidential security guards.