We must pay attention to the proliferation of small arms – Akufo-Addo

General News on Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Source: citinewsroom.com

2018-11-28

President Nana Akufo-Addo wants the country's security agencies to pay more attention to the manufacture and proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

He added that his administration would give the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons the means to monitor the activities of firearms manufacturers and to ensure that they do not fall into the wrong hands.

At a meeting with the board of the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons at Jubilee House, President Akufo-Addo said that greater attention should be given to the risk to the security of local small arms.
"Domestic weapons facilities are not very sophisticated, but they do exist. They are part of the security architecture of our country. "

"We do not seem focused enough on them, nor on the steps we need to take to control their proliferation and existence, and how they work and produce," said the president.

Ninety percent of the weapons in the crime scene are manufactured locally, according to the Interior Minister.

"We are reliably informed that locally manufactured weapons account for about 90 percent of the weapons used in Ghana's armed robbery. Unfortunately, the efforts of all previous governments to introduce another livelihood for the manufacturers have not yielded the expected results. The amnesty strategy to register unregistered guns has had very little impact, "said Ambrose Dery in 2017.

The Parliamentary Committee on Defense and the Interior had previously urged the Ministry of the Interior to use technology to track firearms in the country.

"We need to digitize the old manual method of retrieving and filing records. We need to computerize the system to be able to track all the weapons it contains, "said Collins Owusu Amankwah, Vice Chair of the Committee.