Representatives of the various security agencies appeared before the Judgement Debt Commission yesterday to provide documents covering court cases initiated against the agencies.
Consequently, the representatives presented notices of intentions by some people to sue the respective security services to the commission.
Normally, notices are first served on institutions before writs are filed at the courts against the security agencies throught the Attorney General.
The security agencies were the Ghana Police Service (GPS), the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), the Ghana National Fire and Rescue Service (GNFRS) and the Ghana Prisons Service (GPS). Representatives
The Prisons Service was represented by Assistant Controller of Prisons Mr Twumasi Appiah, while the GNFRS was represented by the acting Chief Fire Officer, Brigadier General John Bosco-Guyiri.
They both tendered in some documents covering some cases.
When they took their turn, the Chief Director of the Ministry of Defence, Mr Alidu Fuseini; Group Captain Mike Kwame Appiah-Agyekum and the Deputy Director of Legal Services of the GAF, Lt Col Charles Gbekle, representing the GAF, tendered in some documents in relation to some cases.
The GPS was represented by a legal officer at the service’s legal directorate, Mr Anthony K. Kokroko.
He submitted only two documents and asked for some time to gather more comprehensive documents.
The commission gave him up to May 29, 2014 to appear before it with the documents. Nursing officer
Counsel for the commission, Mr Dometi Kofi Sorpkor, asked representatives of the GAF to explain why a nursing officer, Mr Victor Adu Nyarko, who was killed in a military helicopter accident, together with some military officers, in 2002, was not paid any compensation by the GAF.
Mr Nyarko had been asked to accompany the injured military officers from the Nkawkaw Holy Family Hospital to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra when the helicopter crashed in the Atiwa Forest, killing everybody on board.
Counsel for the commission said all the families of the deceased soldiers were given compensation but Mr Nyarko’s family was not paid any compensation,
His family took the case to court and it received compensation of GH¢15,000.
Responding, Group Captain Appiah-Agyekum confirmed that all the families of the deceased soldiers had been given compensation.
However, he said, he did not have any records on the payment of compensation to Mr Nyarko’s family.
He said under the laws of the military, no civilian was entitled to any compensation if he or she died together with military personnel in a military aircraft.
Therefore, civilians were made to sign indemnity forms before entering a military aircraft in order to absolve the military from the payment of any compensation in case of an accident. Vehicle accident
The representatives of the GAF also told the commission about an accident involving GAF’s fire engine and a Kia truck at Kintampo which resulted in the death of three people in the Kia truck, with one survivor.
All the occupants of the fire engine survived.
Group Captain Appiah-Agyekum said a board of enquiry which had investigated the case faulted the two drivers for neglect and recommended the payment of compensation to the survivors.
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