Good decision Mr. President but…

President Mills was yesterday quoted by the Daily Graphic as having directed the Police Service to install arms registries across the country, as part of measures by the government to properly control arms.

“The government is also taking steps to ensure good stockpile management, as well as branding and tracing of official weapons, to deal with the impunity with which small arms are being used for violent crimes and conflicts in the country,” the paper quoted the President as saying.

To us at The Chronicle, this directive from the President seems to have confirmed the public perception that some of the weapons being used by state security agencies have found their way into private hands. On a number of occasions, the police themselves have come out to state that some of the weapons they seize from armed robbers belong to the Police Service and the military. What is not clear, is how and where these robbers procure the guns from.

Unfortunately, when the police inform the public about the retrieval of such sophisticated weapons, they however fail to tell us the result of their investigations into the source of the weapons, as to whether the weapons belong to the state or were smuggled into the country. This lack of information flow has made some people conclude that the seized G-3 and AK-47 rifles from the armed robbers come from either the police or the military armoury.

The Chronicle, however, thinks that whether these weapons were procured from the state security armoury, or were smuggled into the country, was a serious matter that must be dealt with by the government. The AK47 and G-3 guns allegedly being used in the Bawku conflict, should send strong signals to the government that the country would not be safe, if the sources through which the weapons get into the wrong hands are not traced and stopped.

Taking stock of state armoury is a good idea, but we must go beyond that and tighten security at our porous borders to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the country.