allAfrica.com: Ghana: "Securing The State" Top Priority, Says Ghana's Kufuor (Page 1 of 3)

In a wide-ranging interview with allAfrica.com correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton at his Accra residence, the newly elected president of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor declared that healing divisions and uniting the nation were among his top priorities. He also pledged to revitalize Ghana's sluggish economy and stabilize the West African nation's faltering currency. Jerry Rawlings, the outgoing President does not face prosecution for the coup that brought him to power in 1981, Mr. Kufuor says, but he plans to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Committee to head off any attempts at reprisals by people with grievances.

We are publishing the complete interview in three parts over the next three days. In part one, President Kufuor discusses taking the reins of power after the long years of Jerry Rawlings' government.

Q: Mr Kufuor, you've won one battle, but you certainly have another battle ahead of you.

A: Yes, I have a full battle, but a different battle from what I expect you are speculating on.

Q: What are you immediate priorities?

A: Securing the state and government and forming my government and inducting it into managing the civil service.

Q: What do you mean by 'securing the state'?

A: What I mean by securing the state is ensuring that the security agencies of state are firmly in place and are loyal to the new government and to the state as a whole, so there is no untoward upset in the state machinery.

Q: How confident are you, as president elect, that you will have the security agencies with you, having as they have done over the past twenty years, worked with a man that, I suppose, a lot of them see as a fellow brother, a former soldier ie: President Rawlings?

A: I assume that our soldiers and other security agencies are professional in the first place and, as such, would know that their loyalty should be to the state, the sovereignty of the land, and not to any one individual or partisan group. It is on this basis I feel sure they would accord me the commitment and loyalty to serve me, for the state.

Q: What about the special army units set up by President Rawlings, do you foresee a need to perhaps dismantle them or change their roles?

A: It s early days for me to comment on the fate of that body. What I understand though is that it is made up of professional soldiers, so I would expect them to be amenable to any rearrangement within the army. But, of course, I would want to take over properly and ascertain their role before I make any moves.

Q: You are speaking quite cautiously, do you have doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces?

A: I have to speak cautiously, because this is Africa. I happen to have been a member of an earlier government, which lasted only two years and three months, because some soldiers banded together and overthrew the government. So, once bitten twice shy. So naturally, this is why I said I should secure the state and the government. It is top, topmost priority with me.

Q: So will you be meeting the top brass of the military?

A: It is necessary, just like I will meet the civil service establishment. These are the immediate machines or mechanisms of government with which to govern.

Q: With just seven days till the swearing-in, there is not much time to do everything: form a government, meet the heads of the security agencies, the army, the navy, the airforce, the police etc, how are you going to fit it all into a short week?

A: You are assuming that you need to form the government before the end of this week. No, I don t think so. I think what we need the seven days to do is how to take over the government. And, by the constitution, the government is the presidency. I believe there is a bit more time for the president to scout around, pick his team to form cabinet and government generally. The president has more than seven days to do all that.

Within the seven days what is necessary, the way I understand it, is my putting up a transitional team to work with the outgoing government s own team; A sort of handing over exercise in which the government's team would, hopefully, open the books of government to my people to see what the government is leaving behind. And through that, we would be informed to take steps to tide ourselves into office smoothly as far as it is possible.

Q: I suppose that also means checking the state coffers?

A: (Laughing). Well, opening books may include that.

Q: Are you expecting some surprises from the books?

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories