The Minority in Parliament is demanding a full-scale independent parliamentary inquiry into what it calls Ghana’s increasing emergence as a transit hub for drug seizures under the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
The demand was contained in a statement issued on September 13 and signed by the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour.
The Minority said it is alarmed by the frequency and scale of major narcotics trafficking cases in which Ghana has featured over the past 18 months, either through seizures made within the country or consignments intercepted by foreign authorities after being traced to Ghana.
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It cited the recent seizure of cocaine valued at more than $260 million by French authorities as a particularly serious development.
The cocaine was reportedly concealed in a container carrying plastic waste, raising fresh concerns among the Minority about the effectiveness of Ghana’s systems for screening and monitoring cargo passing through the country.
According to the Minority, the various narcotics seizures linked to Ghana under the Mahama administration have a combined value of more than $1 billion in less than two years.
The Minority argued that the scale of the seizures should trigger questions about whether Ghana’s ports, airports, highways and territorial waters are being adequately protected from international drug trafficking networks.
It also questioned the effectiveness of measures being implemented by state institutions to prevent Ghana from being exploited as a transit point for narcotics destined for other countries.
The Minority expressed particular concern about what it described as the silence of institutions mandated to prevent, investigate and combat narcotics trafficking.
It claimed that Ghana’s port authorities had not publicly accounted for the cocaine consignment intercepted in Dunkirk, France, while the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) has also remained “conspicuously quiet” on the matter.
The Minority said the absence of clear public explanations from the relevant institutions, against the backdrop of repeated major drug seizures, constituted a matter of serious national concern.
It therefore wants Parliament to initiate a comprehensive and independent inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the various narcotics seizures linked to Ghana.
The proposed inquiry, according to the Minority, should go beyond establishing the quantities and monetary value of drugs seized and investigate possible institutional failures that may have enabled trafficking networks to operate through Ghana.
It wants Parliament to examine possible complicity, negligence or failures of oversight involving institutions responsible for internal security, transportation, port operations and narcotics control.
The Minority also expects the inquiry to establish how narcotics consignments were able to pass through Ghanaian territory and determine whether existing surveillance, intelligence-sharing and cargo-screening systems are adequate.
It maintained that the issue should not be treated as isolated drug seizures but as a broader national security and institutional accountability concern.
The Minority said an independent parliamentary investigation would help establish the facts, identify weaknesses within Ghana’s drug enforcement architecture and recommend measures to prevent the country from becoming a preferred route for international narcotics trafficking.
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