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Ghana never had a copy of the 2015 military agreement with the USA-Defence Minister

By Mutala Yakubu
Military agreement
Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul
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The Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul has disclosed that Ghana does not have a copy of the 2015 military agreement with the United States of America.

According to Dominic Nitiwul, it is unfortunate that Ghana cannot produce a copy of the 2015 agreement which the 2018 agreement is based.

“Unfortunately, Ghana didn’t have a copy of the agreement,” Mr. Nitiwul told Samson Lardy Anyenini on Joy FM’s flagship news analysis show; Newsfile Saturday, March 24, 2018.

Nitiwul added that he was only made aware of the 2015 agreement when the US referred to it in the 2018 agreement.

“Until they made reference to it I didn’t have any idea…it was when Ghana Armed Forces were meeting with the US to structure this agreement…that is when the Americans gave them a copy of the 'Hannah Tetteh agreement'. That is how we messed up ourselves as a country," he said.

"It was not in my handing over notes and I wrote to the Foreign Minister and she checked her archives and she didn’t have it as well," he said.

The Defence Minister then went on to reveal that the current agreement with the United States is an improvement on what Ghana agreed to in 2015.

“The agreement tells you in the last paragraph that, once we sign this, it supersedes all other agreements we have with them. They consolidated all the agreements we have with them into one document and have asked us to sign,” he said.

Parliament has approved the Ghana-US military agreement

Nitiwul also confirmed that the Ghana-US government amended the original document submitted by the US authorities.

“When you look at the original agreement, it was worse than this,” he said.

"I wrote to all the Ministries [and Departments] concerned, Foreign Affairs, National Security, Interior, Attorney General, and everyone concerned and they provided me with a technical person to form our team.

“We took some clauses out and brought some in," he said.

He also noted that the US agreement is a standard template used worldwide by the US.

Ghana is the only country to have forced the US government to negotiate, he said.

"The Ambassador was even surprised…,” he added.

The agreement has since been sent to Parliament and ratified by the House although it generated a fierce debate between the majority and minority members of the House.

Read also:Parliament approves Ghana-US Military Agreement

Some Pressure Groups including the Economic Fighters League have voiced out their displeasure for the deal and promised to punish the MPs that support the deal.