High profile busts must go with high profile prosecution – Rev Ntim Fordjour 

Ranking Member of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, has questioned the prosecution of suspects arrested in connection with major drug seizures in Ghana.

The lawmaker cited the prosecution of suspects linked to major narcotics seizures, including the 3.3-tonne cocaine consignment intercepted at Pedu Junction in Cape Coast in March 2025.

The consignment, which was concealed beneath sand in a tipper truck travelling from Takoradi to Accra, was valued at more than $350 million.

Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, September 22, Rev. Ntim Fordjour argued that investigations into such seizures should lead to the identification and prosecution of the alleged masterminds behind the consignments.

“Is it not embarrassing and hypocritical that you would make high-profile busts and conduct low-profile prosecutions?” he asked.

He said the prosecution of the truck driver and his mate alone did not address the wider networks behind the drug trade, arguing that the suspects could not reasonably be considered the financiers or organisers of consignments worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“If you arrest consignments of drugs of $350 million, and you are prosecuting a driver and a mate who do not even have beyond GH¢5,000 in their lives,” he said.

The former Deputy Minister for Education also pointed to the Ghana-Australia methamphetamine case as an example of what he described as a more direct approach to pursuing suspected organisers.

In June 2026, Australian authorities announced charges against three people following the interception of about 320 kilogrammes of methamphetamine in a shipment from Ghana, while NACOC subsequently arrested a Ghanaian woman identified as the lead shipper after a three-month investigation.