President John Mahama has rejected claims that Ghana made monetary gains from the US government to host two former Guantanamo Bay detainees in the country.
There were media reports that claimed the President and his government received about $300 million from the US before accepting the request from the US.
“There is no monetary consideration and the US itself would have disclosed if there was any monetary consideration. What you are seeing on social media that I collected $300 million to accept these detainees is absolutely untrue.”
He was speaking at a media interaction at the Flagstaff House.
He also said they had received assurances that the two detainees posed no security threat to Ghana.
“There was a request from the United States of America to my government; we have been allies to the United States for a long time, it didn’t start today. We have partnered in a lot of things and we continue to collaborate in areas of security, training with our armed forces, with areas of defense. So when we received the request like this we said we will appraise it, and based on the appraisal we will take a decision.”
President Mahama added that they held extensive consultations both internally and externally, “a risk assessment was done by the US itself and these two detainees, Al-Dhuby and Bin Atef, were considered to be the most compliant detainees in Guantanamo camp. And they were put in the lowest risk category.”
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana