Rawlings moves into Francis Poku’s house

The government has temporarily made available, a building facility belonging to the National Security, to former President Rawlings and his family.

The facility allocated to the former First Family, Today found out, was last occupied by former Security Chief, Mr Francis Poku, during the NPP administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

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It was the same facility which three years ago staged a theatre of resistance by Mr Francis Poku and his loyalists at a time that many thought the Kufuor administration was offering unjust and raw deal to the former Minister of National Security.

The allocation of the facility follows a decision by the former President to reject an earlier government decision to allocate to the former President and his family, a State Lodge-Australia House, situated at Cantonment in Accra.

Today gathered that although former President Rawlings rejected the Australia House on grounds that the government decision has generated unnecessary public debate and controversy, the former President also believed as a State facility, the Australia House should be used for that purpose.

The paper's investigations however established that government would not abandon renovation of the Australia House and is still continuing with them as part of government's decision to bring all state facilities to the required standard.

The paper reported two weeks ago that the former President was temporarily offered the Australia House as a home following the horrific incident where fire virtually consumed his official North Ridge residence last month.

“The decision by ex-President Rawlings to reject the Australia House also clearly underlies his modest nature and also to ward off unnecessary meaning that particularly, opposition elements were reading into the allocation of the Australia House to him”, a source close to the former President alluded.

The new facility allocated to the former first family is located at the Examination Loop, near the West African Examination Council offices, and it is a road away from the headquarters of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) at the Ridge Residential Area in Accra.

Another landmark in the area is the Golden Jubilee Facilities that were built by the Kufuor administration for visiting Heads of States and government during the Golden Jubilee anniversary of Ghana's Independence in 2007.

Although renovation works on the facility is still on-going, Today can state on authority that one of the daughters of the former first family, Yaa Asantewaa Rawlings, lives in the house, receiving visitors and sympathisers on behalf of her parents.

She often prepares food and offers other beverages to die-hard Rawlings adherents who constantly visit the house to offer support and console the Rawlingses in their grief. The security detail of the facility is high alert and on 24-hour surveillance.

It is almost an impossibility noticing the security detail from a distance, but Today discovered during checks that they are quietly located at strategic places in and around the building.