King Bondzi Ebi Gyarteh III

Kantamanto Bondziebi Gyarteh III was born on 19th October 1929 at Adawso in the Ashanti Akim District to Sampson Okyere Ghartey Dontoh and Madam Mary Eghan (daughter of Nana Aba Gunaba, Queen-mother of SrafaKokodu) and named Robert Johnson Ghartey Dontoh

. His early childhood days were spent in Winneba where he was educated at the Winneba Methodist Boys’ School from 1938 to 1945.

After his basic education he joined G. B. Olivant as a clerk. It is said that most of the customers found him to be smart and hardworking and that earned him a good reputation among the company’s owners. After a few years with the company he was enticed to join the military. On April 9, 1952 he was enlisted into the Gold Coast Regiment and got promoted to the rank of Sergeant in May 1955.

Being studious, he sat for the Advanced Education Examination in August 1956 and had very excellent passes. On several occasions, he said that it was this examination that became the fulcrum for the turning around of his career with the military. It was this that facilitated his officer training and this led to his admission into the Regular Officer Special Training Course at Teshie in Accra in March 1957. After this training, he proceeded to the Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School, in UK in 1958 to for further officer training. On completion of the officer training course in the UK, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant on March 16, 1959. Following this success in the UK, he returned home and furthered his duty with the Ghana Armed Forces as a Lieutenant. When the Ghana Army was invited into the Congo crisis, then as a young officer, he was posted to and served in the Congo under the United Nations Operations there for a little over a year.

He eventually returned to Ghana in 1961 but was moved to the Armoured Reconnaissance unit where he later become the first Ghanaian Commanding Officer (Recce Regiment). Following the coup in 1966, the National Liberation Council assigned him to the Central Region as the Regional Commissioner. Administratively, he did a lot for the people of the Central Region including the award of a contract for the construction of the Winneba Urban Council Offices which is now the Municipal Assembly Offices. He retired honourably from the Ghana Armed Forces on October 31, 1969 as a Lieutenant Colonel. Col. Bob Dontoh, as he was affectionately called, entered into business. He was first appointed as the Managing Director of Loyalty Industries and then later on his own, became a private entrepreneur.

He set up the Robmay Salt Industry at Srafa Oboanoto produce salt and then established the General Pharmaceutical Associates Ltd in Cape Coast which manufactured various pharmaceutical products for the Ghanaian market. When the late King Ghartey V was failing in health and saddled with litigation, he summoned before a gathering of the principal elders of the Otuano Royal House and appointed him the retired Colonel the heir apparent by making him sit on his lap.

His resourcefulness and management prowess enabled the Head of the Otuano House, Neenyi Kow Gyanpanyin, who had instituted a court action at the Central Region House of Chiefs to successfully prosecute that case. The outcome of this case is the much celebrated judgment on the Effutu Paramount Stool.

When Neenyi Ghartey V passed away, Neenyi Kow Gyanpanyin, in his capacity as the head of kingmakers of the Otuano Royal House, enstooled Col. (rtd) Bob Dontoh as Kantamanto Bondziebi Gyarteh III on the Otuano Stool on 5th May 1979. As the Effutu Oma Odefe, his immediate attention was to improve the quality of the fishing business in Winneba. He quickly established the Winneba-Japan Fishery Project and introduced the Yamaha Outboard motor into the fishing industry in Winneba. This was to boost fishing which was the mainstay of the Winneba economy. Throughout the few years that he was the Odefe of Effutu, he had no peace as all his time was spent on litigation. The social and economic infrastructure for the advancement of the fishing industry in Winneba that he intended to nurture could not be sustained. Civil conflicts engulfed the morale of the Effutu community. He had to painfully and sordidly relinquish the stool for the peace of the Effutu State following the promulgation of the obnoxious PNDC Law 105 of 1985 which gave recognition, surprisingly, to Ayirebi Acquah IV. He had a very brief reign on the Otuano Stool. He subsequently led a very peaceful private life in Accra till he passed away on Sunday, September 27, 2009.