'Let's fight drug menace'

Page 45: Daily Graphic, March 19, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has called on Ghanaians to rally behind the government to fight the drug menace in the country.
He said Ghanaians must not allow local drug barons and their international collaborators to reduce the country to a state of lawlessness and insecurity.
The Vice-President, who was addressing a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Government of Ghana-organised conference on drugs, said the government had directed all the security agencies to go all out to arrest, prosecute and confiscate the properties of drug traffickers to serve as a disincentive for people contemplating entering the trade.
At the conference, which was on the theme, “Ghana against drug and crime”, the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mrs Elizabeth Mills-Robertson, unveiled a confidential crime fighters hotline number, 021-773695, which would be manned 24 hours a week for the public to call and provide information on drug dealers, armed robbers, car thieves and wanted persons.
Mr Mahama said the drug menace had not only eaten deep into the moral fibre of the society but also triggered off organised crime as an occupational profession for some youth.
He urged Ghanaians to rekindle national ethical values of morality, honesty and hard work and question the source of wealth of persons who became rich overnight.
He said the drug menace had lowered the esteem of Ghana in the international community and continued to paint an ugly picture of the country in the eyes of the comity of nations.
He, therefore, saw the conference as a follow-up to President Mills’s pledge to deal with the menace and ensure a drug- free society.
The Vice-President said although Ghana was a signatory to many UN conventions and protocols on drugs, combating the menace had become a jig-saw puzzle which seemed to defy conventional approaches to law enforcement.
He said the government had recognised the inadequacy of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) Law, PNDC Law 236 of 1990, and would amend it and strengthen NACOB to serve as a lead agency to co-ordinate drug law enforcement and prevention activities of all state security agencies.
Mr Mahama said the government would also source funding for the procurement of appropriate equipment and gadgets to facilitate the detection of concealed narcotic drugs at the entry and exit points.
He said the government had also decided to descend heavily on all security personnel who compromise their positions in the fight against drugs.
The Interior Minister, Mr Cletus Avoka, said Ghana had become a preferred drug destination because of its stability, poor coastline security, direct flights from the Kotoka International Airport, as well as bribery and corruption among law enforcement officers.
He expressed the hope that the conference would result in finding an integrated and pragmatic solution to the multi-faceted drug problem.
Speaking on the “Mexican Experience”, a researcher at the Centre for Research and Anthropology in Mexico City, Mr Carlos Antonio Perez, said Mexico was not a coca producing country but had reached the present state of chaos because officialdom and Mexicans ignored the problem.
He said both Mexicans and officialdom described Mexico only as a transit country. He showed videos of clashes among different cartels and attacks on police stations to free captured drug dealers.
The Executive Director of NACOB, ACP Robert Ayalingo, said deconfiscation of the properties of convicted drug dealers and the failure of the Attorney-General’s Department to appeal against certain judgements lowered the morale of personnel of the board.
He called for the establishment of a National Rehabilitation and Addiction Monitoring Centre, away from the psychiatric hospitals, to enable the fight against the drug menace to be appropriately measured.
The British High Commissioner to Ghana, Dr Nick Westcott, pledged the support of the international community to assist Ghana to deal with the menace.