Friday, February 27, 2009

HEADS ROLL AT NATIONAL SECURITY

Hundreds of security operatives, public and civil servants employed between 2001 and 2008 at the Presidency and the National Security Council are on the verge of being sacked as they have been taken off their schedules.The affected government employees have been separated from their colleagues and ordered to report at the National Security Office behind the Ohene Djan Sports Stadium in Accra for interrogation and cross-examination everyday.Already, DAILY GUIDE can report that 41 security operatives have been sacked from the Osu Castle and asked to report every morning to sign attendance book and go home.Others have been scattered across various small government offices in Accra; some of them have neither furniture to sit on nor roles to play in their new offices.The politically motivated action in being orchestrated by President Mills’ security goons including National Security Advisor, Brigadier Joseph Nunoo-Mensah (rtd) and the National Security Coordinator, Lt Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey (rtd) from the Castle Annex, otherwise called Blue Gate.The sereneness at the National Security Council is nothing but a facade over a boiling situation in which staffers considered politically incorrect are subtly shown the exit from the Blue Gate.The affected staff, made up of mostly those employed between 2001 and 2008, have not been formally shown the exit, but they are asked to come to their places of work and sign an attendance book and retire to their various homes - a development which has raised suspicion among the intelligence operatives who have understood the official body language of the top men in charge of the once dreaded establishment.This situation was preceded by a stressful auditing of staff engaged in the past eight years, with each being interviewed on details of when they were employed and their roles in the intelligence department in the period aforementioned.Of particular importance to the team engaged in the auditing is how the officers were employed.Even as the auditing continues, the Gbevlo-Lartey-run National Security outfit has also employed a number of operatives, a normal phenomenon when a new government is in place. For those who have so far been interviewed, it is only a matter of time before they are shown the exit.Information reaching DAILY GUIDE suggests that other intelligence-related outfits like the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) are passing through similar auditing although on a more subtle fashion than the National Security Council.A certain bearded man, whose name is only given as Gustav, is said to be busy and prominent in the human sieving, an exercise labeled as political by those who have heard about it.Some of the newly-employed have proceeded for a training programme germane to the intelligence vocation including weapon training, and basic intelligence gathering.A few staffers of the department have already resigned sensing what for them could be a regime of vindictiveness at the facility.One of the staff who spoke to DAILY GUUIDE noted, “I have already written to them and my request accepted. In fact I have packed out of the official accommodation.”There is also an ongoing plot to malign another group of civil and public servants in an attempt to smoke them out of their jobs because they are perceived as not belonging to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) while some are related to top shots of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).The Controller of Households at the Office of the President, Sheila Sackey, who is the daughter of Brigadier General Robert O. Sackey, Commander of the Ghana Armed Forces Military Academy, has fallen victim to this smear plot that is aimed at smoking her out of the position.“They would ask you if you are new, old, or old-old. The ‘new’ are those who started to work at the Castle this year, the ‘old’ are those who came there during the Kufuor administration and the ‘old-old’ are those who were there before the NPP came to power.“Those of us who fell within the old category were reassigned and now we are being interrogated at the Blue Gate; a colleague in the ‘old-old’ told me that she was nearly sacked because she was seen speaking to me near the Castle after work,” one of the reassigned workers told DAILY GUIDE.The interview panel at the National Security Office is said to be a six-member team whose aim is apparently to know the political affiliation of the said workers and why some of them were seen at a number of New Patriotic Party (NPP) functions.The operation includes the planting of malicious stories in the media against such persons, smuggling confidential information from the office files of the targets and giving them to a particular media house, linking the targets to alleged irregularities of the out-gone government as well as framing up such persons in their respective offices.The motive is to damage the reputation of the said workers to an extent that they would get frustrated and resign from the service as it is practically impossible to terminate their appointments without offending labour laws.DAILY GUIDE can report that some top guns in the corridors of power are uncomfortable with Sheila Sackey working at the National Security Office and have therefore given out distorted information on her to a pro-NDC newspaper and contracted a number of persons to run her down.In the past weeks, the newspaper has consistently published damaging but fabricated reports about the lady and presented her as though she did not qualify for the position she occupies.Contrary to claims that Sheila Sackey holds a Second Class Honours- Lower Division- from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi but managed to bypass everyone at state protocol to the top within the twinkle of an eye, checks by DAILY GUIDE revealed that the lady wields an MBA. Only a university Diploma is the educational qualification required for the job she is doing.Sheila Sackey, who has been presented as a young girl in her mid 20s but has acquired several landed properties in many parts of Accra, has turned out to be a 33-year-old lady whose only landed property is her residence in Cantonments.Interestingly, the passport seized picture on the office file of Sheila Sackey at the National Security Office is the same picture that the media is publishing; a situation which creates suspicion that someone at the office might have leaked the picture to the media.Contrary to claims that the Controller of Households at the Office of the President is a job put aside for retired Colonels, but was unfairly given to Sheila Sackey, checks from the National Security show that the last person to have held that position was a Warrant Officer.
Source:Daily Guide

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