Operation Westbridge, a collaboration between the governments of Ghana and the United Kingdom (UK) to combat the drug trade, has yielded 69 arrests and £40 million in narcotic seizures since its launch last November. The haul comprises 244 kilogrammes of cocaine; 1.2 kilogrammes of heroin and 1,148 kilogrammes of cannabis with street values of £37 million, £280,000 and £3.4 million respectively. The 69 arrests comprised 20 Ghanaians and 49 foreigners, mostly Nigerians, British and Dutch. Of the arrests, 16 were made in the UK while the rest were made in Ghana. A Minister of State at the Ministry of the Interior, Nana Obiri Boahen, announced this in Accra on Tuesday at the closing ceremony of a training workshop being part of the Global Container Project. The United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between it and five of Ghana's security agencies on July 7, this year, for a Joint Port Unit with personnel drawn from the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB), Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) to profile all containers arriving at the country's ports. The training programme formed part of the MOU signed with the view to equipping the selected personnel with the requisite skills and technical capabilities to undertake the project. Ghana is the second country after Senegal to join the Global Container Project to help deal with the scourge of drug trafficking. Nana Obiri Boahen said recent events had put the issues of drug abuse and trafficking at the centre of the debate in the country as one of the real socio-economic plagues which could seriously and negatively affect the very foundation of the country if not tackled holistically. He said the potential negative effects of the menace had united Ghanaians to wage a war against the problem with the aim of rendering drug abuse and trafficking in the country the most unattractive activity for both Ghanaians and foreigners. He said the government, the initiator of the drug war, had intensified its efforts and was determined to ensure its success. "In the prosecution of this war, we have come to the realisation that an adequate response to the drug scourge and its attendant social, economic, health and security challenges is conditioned on a balanced vision, translated into a unitary policy that cannot be achieved unless all national institutions and international community in the field co-ordinate their efforts," he noted. Source: Daily Graphic .