A security analyst at the Kofi Annan Peace Keeping Training Centre, Dr Kwesi Aning says the proliferation of small arms in the country have been necessitated by a mix of poverty, youth unemployment and political manipulations. He also believes the police and other security agencies have been ineffective in clamping down on the illegal acquisition of weapons. Dr Aning was responding to a United Nations report on drugs and crime which cited Ghana as a major hot spot for illegal weapons trade in West Africa. The report said Ghana’s security agencies rented out and sold firearms to criminal groups in the country, contributing to increase in crime levels both in the country and across the West African sub-region. The report mentioned that some 75,000 small arms are circulating in Ghana with the Tudu market in Accra as one place where locally produced weapons are openly available for sale. According to the report, returning Peace Officers, refugees as well as security officials and ethnic groups across Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have been the lead distributors of such weapons. Dr Aning stressed that although the police service claim to be pursuing an “intelligence-led” arms retrieval processes, such efforts have yielded little or no result. “Intelligence means proactive use of information and knowledge. If you are intelligence-led to retrieve arms and you can only retrieve one arm, then it means there is something fundamentally wrong with the intelligence,” he said. He said problem raises more questions than answers. “Are there companies in Ghana, authorised by those with the power to import guns into Ghana? If so how many companies are there, what types of guns do they bring, how much ammunition they bring in?” he asked. According to the UN report the local manufacture of small weapons has been a major contributor to the problem. Ghana’s Black Smiths are apparently skilled in the manufacture of cheap firearms such as multi-shot revolvers and shot-guns which go for as low as $100 on the Tudu market. The country is mentioned as an exporter of guns to other parts of West Africa. Dr Aning hints it’s time government found more ingenuous ways to rid the country of illegal arms. He said government must conduct a proper check on weapon importing companies to ensure that dangerous arms do not land in the wrong hands. Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com