Wikileaks Expos� Not Harmful Yet � Kumbour

The Minister of Interior, Benjamin Kumbour believes it is too early to suggest that the latest Wikileaks expos� could possibly harm Ghana�s diplomatic relations. According to him, a comprehensive disaggregation and analysis of both the raw data and opinion pieces contained in the cables is necessary to establish the true interests of the originating embassies. Such analysis, the Interior Minister added, would only lead to proper understanding of what is at stake and how to respond accordingly. Speaking to Citi News, Dr Kumbour said there is enough history to back the position of caution in assessing so called intelligence, citing examples of South Africa, Congo and the invasion of Iraq based on either engineered or wrong intelligence to lead to certain outcomes. Dr Kumbour has therefore advised public officers and politicians especially as a preliminary caution pending further investigations to be guarded in their dealings with foreign missions. The latest wikileaks cables have revealed that former President Rawlings was believed to be on drugs. Other cables leaked also indicted the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute and a member of the NPP, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko of attempting to bribe the editor of the Dispatch newspaper, Ben Ephson with $20,000 to skew pre election polls in favour of the NPP, a claim that has been denied by Mr Otchere-Darko but has been confirmed by Ben Ephson. Other cables leaked also sought to give insight to what led to the sudden dismissal of the National Security Coordinator, Francis Poku, by then President Kufuor and how ex-President Kufuor left the nation�s security on high alert for fear of a coup d��tat by his predecessor Jerry John Rawlings. However, Interior Minister Benjamin Kumbour has admonished that people must not be too quick to take a stance on the leaked cables which could harm the country�s diplomatic relations. �You do not use the mix of both raw data and the various forms of reportage through these cables to draw a policy and a national response to the extent that we would begin to see whether it is likely to harm diplomatic relations or not. You would have to disaggregate them, put them in their proper category, find out which are out of the way, which are normal, which are known and are not known and then we would be able to take policy positions in relation to this aggregation. �That is why I am not too excited that we should be drawing conclusions and taking positions and asking government to come out with policy positions on a matter that is a completely mixed bag�.