Disquiet in Army .....

- Aggrieved soldiers petition Minister

PIECES OF information gathered by The Chronicle indicate that there is uneasy calm currently gaining more credence within the Military at the department of Supply and Transport of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The soldiers who were peeved and appealed to the Minister of Defence, Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor to intervene, accused the Director of Supply and Transport (S&T), Col. D.A. Boakye, of adopting favoritism with regards to a May, this year's diplomatic duty examination.

According to the aggrieved soldiers, the director, Col. D.A. Boakye has selected his favorites who had not only failed the examination but also not appeared for the interview for diplomatic duties.

“Nine candidates were selected for diplomatic duties examinations for overseas duties and out of that, six were selected for the final interview, after which four soldiers were able to go through. But unfortunately, before we could realize, two of the six people who passed the exams and were interviewed were deleted and the last two who failed had an automatic qualification,” their hand-written statement released exclusively to this paper stated.

The soldiers pointed out that it was unfortunate that the names of the four soldiers were deleted on the basis of discipline.They mentioned Cpl Odoom and Captain Wilson as those handpicked by the director.

“The director and his deputy know that Captain Wilson did not even take part in any of the examinations so the CDS and the Ghana Armed Forces and the Defence Minister should see to it before one or two people disgrace the Ghana Armed Forces and, for that matter, Ghana as a whole for their selfish interest.”

Contending about why four candidates could compete with four vacancies, the aggrieved soldiers wondered why an unqualified soldier, who did not even take part in any of the examination, would be selected because of favoritism and the use of some unnecessary articles to drop the qualified ones.

The aggrieved soldiers accused the Director and his Deputy of favoritism, claiming that the two were using their position to do their own thing, contrary to the GAF regulations.

“The Supply and Transport department is full of corruption; they know the right thing but fail to do it and we soldiers are informing the Defence Minister as the father of the Armed Forces, to go into this matter carefully before it gets out of hand because the S&T corps are dying slowly.”

The Director of Public Affairs of GAF, Col. Emmanuel Nibo said he had no knowledge about the matter and requested that the issues raised by the soldiers be forwarded to him for his perusal.

“I wonder how the director could do something like that, because the interview is done by the board and there is no way that he could do that.”

The Director of S&T, Col. Boakye, denied the accusations, saying it was untoward for some disgruntled soldiers to embark upon fruitless moves to dent the image of the Military.

He told The Chronicle that, “I don't talk to the press direct. So please talk to the PRO and he would in turn come to us to brief him on the matter,” he pointed out.