The Minister for the Interior Ambrose Dery has said that all persons who are illegally possessing firearms are going to be dealt with in accordance with the laws.
He said steps have been taken to register all firearms in possession of private individuals and even for security agencies.
He said these in an interview with journalists on Tuesday, August 1 while commending the police for arresting the suspected robbers who attacked a bullion van at Ablekuma and killed an officer in the process.
“I want to thank the public, the public has greater confidence in the Police now and they are collaborating by giving information to get to the bottom of those things.
“You do know that we have started registration of arms even for the security agencies, we have done it for the Police, we have done it for immigration, we continue to do that.
“The Police are very soon going to open a shooting range where they will train all those given permission. Those who have not been given permission would be dealt with according to law,” he said.
In relation to the proliferation of illegal arms in the country, recently, the Deputy Director of the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Gyebi Asante, said that the porous nature of Ghana’s borders was contributing to this issue.
Mr. Asante stated that conflicts in neighbouring countries are resulting in weapons being pushed into the country through weak borders.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Thursday, July 27, he said also noted that there are conflict entrepreneurs lurking around who are sponsoring the illegal arms.
“You see the kind of weapons our youth are using, you wonder where these weapons are coming from. You realize that, especially in the North where we have some of these conflicts, they are close to the borders and looking at how porous our borders are, that is how some of these sophisticated weapons manage to get into the country,” he said.
He added “What we realized is that these weapons are not weapons that these young guys buy themselves.
“We realized that with some of the conflict it looks like we have some conflict entrepreneurs, we have some people who are in this conflict because of some interest that they have.”
His comments come after the Police on 25th July 2023, arrested 14 suspects in connection with a clash leading to the death of two persons at Mpameso Forest near Dormaa Ahenkro in the Bono Region and retrieved the weapons from them.
The suspects are Hafiz Mohammed, Fuseini Mohammed, Abass Abukari, Alhassan Razak, Fuseini Shaibu, Addai Gyebi, Abubakari Issahaku, Seidu Sulemana, Kwabena Yeboah, Sulley Alhassan, Enoch Opoku, Ibrahim Issah, Obeng Richard and Ibrahim Adams.
According to Police investigation, they shot the two deceased persons during the clash while they were guarding a timber concession at Mpameso Forest.
A search conducted on them following their arrest led to the retrieval of eight (8) pump action guns, a cutlass and a knife.
All suspects are currently in Police custody assisting the investigation and will be put before court today 27th July 2023, to face justice.
