Addo-Kufuor, Owusu-Ankomah, Mensa-Bonsu vetted

Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah
THE Minister designate for the Interior, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, has advocated a collaborative effort by the security agencies and the citizenry to curb the armed robbery menace in the country.
He said that was the only way to nib the problem in the bud to create the conducive environment to enable the citizenry to go about their businesses in peace.
The presence of the police, he added, should also be felt at all corners of the country during the day while military and police patrols should be intensified during the night to put fear into armed robbers.
The former Minister of Defence made these suggestions when he appeared before the Appointments Committee of Parliament yesterday to be vetted for his new ministerial nomination.
Also vetted by the committee were Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Minister designate for Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and President’s Special Initiative (PSI), as well as Mr Kwabena Mensa-Bonsu, a Minister of State designate at the Presidency.
Dr Addo-Kufuor told the committee that other measures he intended to put in place when given the nod would be the re-introduction of the neighbourhood watchdog committee concept with incentive packages to the communities to help in the combat against crime.
Commenting on the dwindling confidence in the police by the public due to the recent incidence of police-public confrontation, the nominee stated that measures should be put in place to restore the lost confidence.
He said the ‘stray bullet’ incidence, which had resulted in the death of some civilians, had brought to the fore the need to retrain the police in the handling of weapons.
He told the committee that the upsurge in cocaine cases should be a worry to every Ghanaian, since the situation had the tendency of derailing all the economic gains the country had made in addition to corrupting some prominent institutions such as the Judiciary.
He stated that his main priority would be to ensure peace before, during and after the 2008 general election and asked opposition political parties to count on his neutrality when his nomination was approved.
When he took his turn, Papa Owusu-Ankomah disagreed with the assertion that the concept of the PSIs had been a failure.
He admitted, however, that the initiative was going through challenges, which needed to be tackled through the injection of the needed capital to serve the purpose for which they were instituted.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah, who resigned as Minister of Education, Science and Sports to pursue his presidential ambition, told the committee that Nestle Ghana Limited had made available $6 million for the production of starch that it required for its operation, and said such collaboration, among others that he intended to establish, would go a long way to revitalise the PSI concept.
Answering a question on the invasion of Chinese and other foreign nationals in all aspects of trade in the country, Papa Owusu-Ankomah stated that Ghana had laws guiding the operations of foreign nationals in the trading sector and gave assurance that such laws would be applied to the letter.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah challenged district, municipal and metropolitan assemblies to take the initiative in the country’s industrialisation drive by harnessing their potentials to create employment for their people.
“If we want to be an industrialised country, we need to be innovative, since the world is not waiting for us,” he stated.
Mr Mensa-Bonsu, former Ghana Ambassador to Togo, told the committee that Ghanaian students on scholarship at the Lome University had been paid their allowances and were going about their academic pursuit without any problem.
He said the Ghanaian government had also paid its debt to the university leaving a balance of CFA 12 million.