Mahama Goes For Ken Kandah As Chief of Staff

Information filtering into the office of The Al-hajj indicate that President John Dramani Mahama is about concluding the implementation of the final phase of his dreaded �green letter� dictum which was to witness the sweeping away of some powerful elements at the seat of government. Deep-throat sources close to the President disclosed to The Al-hajj that the President has finalized his decision to do away with his much-criticized boyhood-friend-turned Chief of Staff, Prosper Douglas Kweku Bani. While the President was initially said to be torn between former Ambassador to Nigeria and now presidential staffer, Alhaji Baba Kamara, and Ghana�s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador Victor Smith, latest information reaching The Al-hajj indicates that, President John Mahama has finally settled on former Ghana�s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Ken Kandah. The Kpando-born astute diplomat who has had several years of experience at the Foreign Service and state protocol department, according to sources, will take over from Bani, who also hails from Kpando, immediately after Christmas. Sources say Mr Kandah�s appointment, to be made public soon after Christmas, will be the final phase of President Mahama�s plans to reinvigorate his troubled administration as he promised early this year. On July 4 this year, President Mahama issued what has been termed the �Green Letter� in which he thanked non-ministerial appointees for their good services rendered him and the state; and hinted of the possibility of them being affected by an impending reshuffle. After months of scrambling among non-ministerial appointees of the Flag Staff House, and speculations that the President had abandoned his restructuring exercise, President Mahama on August 24 of this year began the first phase implementation of his green letter. This saw the appointment of Senior Policy Advisor at the presidency, Dr Sule Gariba as ambassador to Canada; Senior Economic Advisor to the President, Dr Nii Moi Thompson was also moved to the National Development Planning Commission as acting Commissioner-General. Subsequently, one of the presidential staffers, Dr Mike Kpessa Whyte was also reassigned to the National Service Secretariat as acting head. However, it is still not clear if the President will reassign the outgoing Chief of Staff who has been his boyhood friend at their undergraduate days at University of Ghana. Mr Bani, who has come under heavy criticism from leading members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and even senior members of the party from the Volta region over accusations of poor human relations and bad leadership style, according to another source, may be replacing the late Paul Victor Obeng as Senior Advisor to the President.