Kan Dapaah’s Encounter With Appointment Committee

By Maxwell Ofori, Parliament House I Albert Kan Dapaah, swear by Almighty God, that the evidence I shall give before this committee, touching the matter in issue, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God. Chairman of Committee, Joseph Osei Owusu, MP for Bekwai, 1st Deputy Speaker […]

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By Maxwell Ofori, Parliament House

I Albert Kan Dapaah, swear by Almighty God, that the evidence I shall give before this committee, touching the matter in issue, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

Chairman of Committee, Joseph Osei Owusu, MP for Bekwai, 1^st Deputy Speaker welcomes nominee– Hon Kan Dapaah you are welcome.

Kan Dapaah– Thank you Chairman, thank you Members.

Chairman – Your vetting is going to be unusual. Unusual in the sense that we do the first part in public, after questions we think should be done in public we will clear the House and continue in chambers off the cameras.

So members of the press please understand that at a point you will be asked to leave the room, we shut out the public the gallery and then we continue the in-camera. It is because of the portfolio he’s been vetted to – the position of the National Security involves a lot of issues that are sensitive better discussed outside the eyes of the press.

Hon Members I will open the floor, invite Members who have questions relating to the nominee’s CV and other issues to proceed. We will continue as we did but this time I will start from the right.

Mahama Ayariga, MP Bawku Central –Thank you very much Mr Chairman. Let me congratulate Hon Kan Dapaah my very good friend for his nomination to handle the portfolio of National Security congratulations.

Given that the vetting is going to be done in two phases most of the issues that I want to raise are matters that that have security implications and I have the directive of my leader the minority leader that there are issues that we will take in-camera. So for now I may pass to my colleague to handle issues of CV and then in-camera I will ask my questions.

Chairman – Lets prepare to; I will start it – Let the nominee tell us a little about himself and then we can ask questions relating to the CV and we can take it from there. Mr Kan Dapaah can you tell us a little about yourself as situated in your CV?

Kan-Dapaah– Well Mr Chairman thank you very much. Let me just remark that the last time I was in this room I was sitting where you are and I was throwing all sort of questions to all sort of people. How interesting democracy can be.

Hon Chairman my name is Albert Kan-Dapaah, I was on 14^th March 1953. I was in primary middle school in Amoako primary, Methodist primary then LA middle. I then went to Acherensua secondary school. There after I went to the Institute of Professional Studies where I prepared myself to study for accountancy, followed it up in UK where I studied for the examination of the Association of Certified Accountants between 1974 to 1978.

I qualified as a professional accountant in 1978, that same year I came down to Ghana and started working for an accounting firm. Initially I had been employed by the Internal Revenue service but when I came there were some changes and I decided to go and work for Pannel Kerr Forster accounting firm for a number of years.

I did work in the office in Accra, and then I was posted to the office in London and also served in Liberia. I ended up as the resident partner of the firm in Liberia. I came down to Ghana after some six years there to start working for the Social Security and National Insurance Trust where I was there director of audit.

I worked there for only about six months and moved on to Electricity Company of Ghana where I was the director of audit for about for about a year and moved on from being the director of audit to be the director of finance and held that position of director of finance from 1989 to about 1995.

In December 1995 I decided to end my public service with Electricity Company and set up an accounting firm and operated as Kan-Dapaah and Associates thereafter. In 1996 I had spent most times in preparing to campaign to become a Member of Parliament. I was successful in 1996 and 1997 I started my political career. I was the Member of Parliament of Afigye-Sekyere West from 1997 indeed up to 2012.

My first term 1997 to 200, Hon Chairman, I was the minority spokesman on mines and energy. When the NPP came to power in December 200 and we took over I was appointed by His Excellency to be the Minister of Energy, I moved from there to become the Minister of Communication, Minister of Interior and finally as Minister of Defence.

I remained in Parliament when the NPP lost power and between 2009 and 2012 I was the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament in addition to being a Member of Parliament. From 2012 to date I have been working with various civil society organizations. I have developed an interest in financial accountability and transparency and I teamed up with some other retired financial accountant to form the Accountability and Transparency Africa.

I have also served as the consulting director for the Centre for Public Accountability and also a part-time lecturer at the Institute of Professional Studies from 2014 to date. Hon Chairman this is briefly about me.

Chairman – Thank you very much. Now the floor is open for members who want ask question relating to the CV. Ablakwa please.

Okudzeto Ablakwa, MP North Tongu– Congratulations Hon Albert KanDapaah. Mr Chairman on the first page of the CV it will appear that had only three years of primary education. I don’t know whether this is a typo or there’s an explanation to that. Amoako primary school is a 58-59 academic year to 61-62 academic years so just three years of primary education?

KanDapaah– Four years in fact. The reason been that in our time it was usual to jump pupils and I was jumped twice.

Okudzeto– Okay, so he was promoted. I’m sure Mr Chairman we will have his permission to do a few corrections; Institute of Professional Studies Accra, Accra is omitted. Page two under the political experience, I’m sure we will have his permission to amend the years; 1997 to 2013 instead of 2012.

Member of Parliament Afigye-Sekyere West because he must have been leaving office on the midnight of January 6 so we will amend that Mr Chairman if we have your permission. Same for 1997 to 2000. We will amend 2000 to 2001 and we will do same for the various ministerial portfolios the Hon nominee held. He writes 2001 to 2008. We will amend 2008 to 2009 if we have your permission and we will do same for chairman public accountants committee, we will amend 2012 to 2013.

And the Hon nominee also does not tell us Mr Chairman other committees he served on in Parliament. He’s only served on mines and energy and the public accounts committee. But we all know of his rich parliamentary background. Is he willing to share with this committee other committee he served on as a Member of Parliament?

KanDapaah– I’m sorry for that omission but I served on the employment committee and served on the communication committee, I have served in the defence and interior committee.

Okudzeto– So we can make the corrections accordingly. Mr Chairman, also on page two the nominee talks about his current engagement director financial accountability and transparency Africa and consulting director for centre for public accountability and adjunct Lecturer University of Professional studies, Accra, where I met him several times. I want to find out from the Hon nominee what he intends to do with these two responsibilities if given the nod?

Kan Dapaah– Hon Chairman, the financial accountability and transparency Africa is a not profit making institution and I have indicated to them that should I be accepted I will no longer serve as director of that company.

My contract with the centre for public accountability at the University of Professional Studies is in fact ended on 31^st December and curiously they wrote a letter to me yesterday thanking me for my services. I don’t know whether that meant they have brought it to an end but I hope that I will continue to be with them as an adjunct Lecturer which I enjoy so much.

Okudzeto– Mr Chairman finally on my side. On the last page following your format your template that you presented to Hon nominees. I noticed that Hon Kan Dapaah has omitted hobbies and referees, especially for hobbies I’m sure will be of major public interest matter for the good people of this country to know what his hobbies are when he’s not engaged in national security matters.

Kan Dapaah – I think when I’m not reading you could probably see that my hobby is football. I don’t support any particular football team, I support whatever team Murinho is coaching.

Hon Yieley Chireh, MP Wa West – This consulting director, what I read in the media was a chair that was established. How do you explain this role that you are mentioning? Was there anything that was created in the university or it was this role that media people were reporting?

Kan Dapaah– Actually I’ve never heard it been described as chair. It was what the university wanted to do. It was to have a tertiary based civil society group on public accountability and I was employed as a director for that purpose. No chair was established.

Hon Bernice Adiku Heloo, MP Hohoe– Thank you very much Mr Chair. Nominee, on the last page of your CV where we have the national awards there is an award from the Republic of Togo but when I look through your CV there is no indication of your affiliation or your activity in Togo. I just want an explanation?

Kan Dapaah– Hon Member, when I was the Minister of Defence, I worked very, very closely with security agencies in Togo. We improved the relationship between the two countries and before I left office His Excellency the President was kind enough to award me with about the highest national award that Togo normally gives, so the President of Togo gave me that award

Hon Osei Bonsu Amoah, MP Akuapem South – Thank you Mr Chairman and congratulations Hon Albert Kan Dapaah. If I look at your CV I remember the very good old days when you were at ECG and indeed you earned the name Mr affordable, I don’t know whether you still use that name.

Kan Dapaah– I don’t but you know there’s a whole story around that affordability. Hon Chairman, I used to be with Hon Oteng Agyei. We were the two people responsible for setting the electricity tariffs in Ghana. At that time there was no Parliament and the two of us will normally do it. He was working from the ministry me working as the director of finance.

And he would normally come out with the calculations as the Minister of Finance, I wanted as much as possible for the electricity company of Ghana.

We will then present our recommendations to the Hon Minister, Hon Ato Ahwoi and he will just have a glance at it and always his question will be your grandmother, can she afford it? Did you inject affordability into it? So affordability was not my creation it was the creation of Hon Ato Ahwoi which I adopted and carried to Parliament when I was in opposition.

When I went into government, I employed the Hon Alban Bagbin to refine it and I think it was Hon Bagbin who then came up with the fact that it was very, very sweet word when you are in opposition but when you are in government it is not that sweet.

O.B. Amoah– The average person may not know what national security is. What is national security?

Chairman – We will go into close section and he will assist you to understand what the national security is. Thank you

To be continued with Hon Haruna Iddrisu’s question

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