Director of the Institute for Intelligence and Strategic Security, Mr. Moses Jatuat has called for the immediate reversal of the nomenclature of the erstwhile Bureau of National Investigation.

His calls come on the back of newspaper publication about alleged compromise of security information through mistaken delivery of official documents meant for the intelligence agency to National Investment Bank (NIB) which shares the same acronym as the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB).

According to a report by Day Break newspaper, documents meant for the National Intelligence Bureau which is Ghana’s internal intelligence agency are wrongly sent to the National Investment Bank since the public is yet to come to terms with the name change of the Intelligence Agency which came into being as result of enactment of the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 2020 (Act 1030). The new Act changed the name of the agency from Bureau of National Investigation to National Intelligence Bureau.

This Mr. Jatuat observes, raises serious concerns about security of sensitive information and intelligence bothering on national security, and called for immediate steps to restore the old nomenclature (BNI).

Explaining further, the Intelligence specialist indicated the current law (Act 1030) only sort to change the word ‘Investigation’ to ‘Intelligence’ and questions the rationale for changing the entire nomenclature from BNI to NIB when there has not been substantial change to the name of the Bureau.

While describing the move as needless, Mr. Jatuat rather charged the National Security Council and Ministry of National Security to invest adequately in improving the intelligence capability of the Bureau by equipping it with modern communication and intelligence gathering logistics and required human resource to effectively carry out its mandate of providing the needed intelligence to counter threats to national security of the Republic.

Source: IISS Communication Bureau (www.iissgh.org)