NPP’s 3 SOUTH AFRICAN ‘MERCENARIES’ RESURFACE AT ASUTSUARE

Ghana’s Army has been sullied with guerilla influences, as three South African mercenaries, who were arrested and deported from the country last year, have resurfaced as hirelings of government to impart military drills, The Gazette has picked up.

Ahmed Shaik Hazis, Denver Dwayne Naidu and Mlungiseleli Jokani have been spotted at Asutsuare in the Greater Accra Region, teaching drills to Ghanaian soldiers at the Military Training Camp there.

In what appeared to be War Games, the three had been seen instructing and coaching Ghanaian soldiers in rehearsals of military maneuvers and practices of warfare.

Sources say they have been engaged by the NPP government to teach counter-terrorism tactics to sections of Ghana’s Standing Army. They started work on Wednesday, according to sources.

The Gazette understands that they are going to serve as guru and mentor soldiers in military tactics for three weeks, before they return to South Africa, having been spirited into the country by the government on the blindside of Ghanaians.

The development tells up to the fact that Ghana’s army has come under the tutelage and influences of suspected mercenaries.

It is also a telltale to the enduring ties that the ruling party and government maintain with freelance soldiers and hired guns.

In the lead-up to the 2016 election, the three South Africans had been arrested by operatives of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) who had acted on intelligence to pick them up at Agona Duakwa in the Central Region, where they had set up a makeshift military training camp.

From their hideout at the El Capitano Hotel, they had been found training 15 loyalists of the NPP in various military drills.

Their arrest by the BNI had sent the NPP, which was then in opposition, into a frenzy of protestation as the party claimed that the three suspected mercenaries had only been in the country at the invitation of private security firm, Delta Security.

However, subsequent interrogation of the three by the BNI would reveal a different story.

From the horse’s own mouth, it had been revealed that the SA 3 were retirees from the South African police force who had been contracted by Capt. Edmund Kojo Koda, Head of then Candidate Akufo-Addo’s personal security, to train the NPP leader’s guards.

Delta Security had therefore not brought them into the country as the NPP would have Ghanaians believe.

According to Ahmed Hazis, Delta Security’s only role in their being brought into the country to train NPP security was that the private security firm, owned by Captain Acquah, who had been colleagues with Capt. Koda during his days in the Ghana army, had been used to import all their training items.

The same Captain Aqcuah was the owner of the El Capitano Hotel, but that, Koda had hired it to host the South Africans, who had lied to Immigration at Kotoka that they were to lodge in other hotels, including Movenpick.

Hazis had also disclosed that he had earlier been in the country in previous election year, 2012, and worked closely with Captain Koda during that election.

Amazingly, a comprehensive report on the operations of Superlock Technologies Limited (STL), a company that the Electoral Commission had engaged to electronically transmit tallied results in the 2012 election, had been retrieved from Hazis’ room.

The NPP would later go on to win the 2016 election amidst reports by the Electoral Commission that its electronic results transmission system had been hacked.

At the time of their arrest, Hazis had denied authoring the document, saying it had been given to him by one Dani Isaaca, an Israeli, based in South- Africa. Even though he claimed he had not read the document which had been in his possession for about three (3) weeks, the BNI had reported that during interrogation it was evident that he was conversant with the content of the document.

Later, a review of the visa applications submitted by the three (3) South Africans revealed that two(2) of the suspects (Jokani and Naidu) had been invited by Dr. Daniel McKorley, Chairman, McDan Group of Companies while Hazis had been invited by Nana Attobrah Quaicoe, Director of Danquah Institute (DI) headed by President Akufo-Addo’s cousin, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko.

McDan was recently in the news over getting a sweetheart deal from the NPP government under shady circumstances in which the Ghana Cocoa Board has sole-sourced the company for a supply contract, while the Agricultural Development Bank has awarded the same company Ghc10million loan at the behest of Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, in the absence of a Board, to enable it to carry out the contract.

In the heat of the arrest of the SA 3 in 2016, the Ghana Immigration Service had corroborated the BNI’s investigative outcomes at a press conference in Accra.

“MlungiselelI Jokani and Denver Dwayne Naidu who are both employees of Glaexec Protection Services Ltd in South Africa were invited by Dr. Daniel McKorley of McDan Shipping Company Ltd by a letter dated 2/03/16. Hazis Ahmed Shaik, an employee of iMvula Quality Protection (Africa) (Pty) Ltd, on the other hand, was invited by Nana Attobrah Quaicoe of the Danquah Institute by a letter dated 22/12/15.

“Hazis Shaik was first to arrive in Ghana. He came on board a South Africa Airlines plane, [Flt no. SA 52] at around 9:40pm on the 5/03/16 on a Republic of South Africa passport number M00052092. He indicated on his disembarkation Card that Movenpick Hotel –Accra was his contact Address in Ghana,” the GIS statement read.

It continued that, “the two other individuals invited by McDan Shipping Ltd arrived in Ghana around 10:15pm on 14/03/16 on South African Airlines, [Flt No. SA 209] and were both traveling on Republic of South Africa passport numbers M00096231 and A05213410 respectively. They both indicated on their disembarkation cards that Alisa Hotel-Accra was their contact Address in Ghana.”

Following the baring of facts around the sojourn of the three suspected SA mercenaries in Ghana, they had been deported from the country.

Soon after that, it had emerged that the NPP had spent some US$5.2million to contract and host the three mercenaries.

The same NPP, which would later win the 2016 election with a surprisingly wide margin of over 900,000 votes, had earlier in 2014 secretly smuggled in mercenaries from Serbia to train party security.

Sacked NPP National Chairman, Paul Afoko, has since revealed that the Serbians had been spirited into the country on the blind side of everybody, including himself, while he was Chairman.

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, had been the mastermind behind the Serbian mercenaries hosting in Ghana, having camped them at a hotel in Mile 7, a suburb of Accra, while they were in the country.

The latest revelation that the three South African mercenaries who had been deported from the country in 2016, had been smuggled back into the country to train the military, reveals the ruling party’s continued ties with mercenary groups.

Even more, it would seem that their influences have now been escalated from the ruling party to Ghana’s military.