THE ENDLESS battle over which administration waged a relentless war against narcotic drugs took centre stage in Parliament yesterday as the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) jabbed President Atta Mills for peddling half-truths on the cocaine menace in the country.<\/p>\n
In an emotionally-charged and highly-animated debate on President Atta Mills\u2019 state of the nation address, Minority spokesman on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Joe Ghartey indicated that the president had twisted facts on the fight against cocaine in Ghana.<\/p>\n
Joe Ghartey, who is also Member of Parliament (MP) for Esikadu\/Ketan and a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, indicated that President Mills\u2019 narrations on some cocaine issues including the supposed 77 parcels of cocaine on MV Benjamin vessel and disappearance of cocaine from Police vault were fallacious.<\/p>\n
Delivering this year\u2019s state of the nation address, President Mills descended heavily on the previous NPP administration, which he claimed did not do much to check drug trafficking through Ghana.<\/p>\n
He claimed that although administrative enquiries were conducted into the listed cases, \u201cthe twist however is that the missing cocaine was not found and the culprits were not identified.\u201d<\/p>\n
But supporting his debate with material evidence, Joe Ghartey could not fathom why President Mills failed to tell Ghanaians the whole truth on the two cocaine cases.<\/p>\n
According to him, it was completely false for President Mills, with all the briefs from state agencies, to have peddled falsehood that no culprits in the MV Benjamin cocaine case were indentified, when in fact nine persons, including those who hired the vessel, had been tried and sentenced by the NPP administration.<\/p>\n
On the disappearance of cocaine from the police vault, the former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice said a committee chaired by Kojo Armah investigated the matter and came out with a report.<\/p>\n
Not satisfied with the report about the whereabouts of the cocaine, Mr. Joe Ghartey reiterated that President Kufuor set up another committee to investigate the matter, indicating that all the facts were available to the Mills administration.<\/p>\n
According to him, contrary to the vile propaganda by the Mills administration that the NPP regime did not do much to fight the drug menace in the country, the Kufuor administration waged a concerted and relentless war against drug traffickers with pragmatic laws and measures.<\/p>\n
The NPP administration, the former Attorney-General pointed out, ensured that cocaine trade was put in the category of non-bailable offences like murder, treason and manslaughter and therefore drug barons were denied bail.
Again, the previous administration passed the anti-money laundering law and other relevant legislation, which ensured that cocaine seized were destroyed publicly.<\/p>\n
He added that unlike what was currently going on, the NPP administration named and shammed drug barons publicly by giving the media unfettered information to publish all drug cases in the country.<\/p>\n
All these measures, Mr. Joe Ghartey observed, made Ghana a no-go area for drug barons as captured by The Ghanaians Times, Saturday September 20, 2008 edition with the headline, \u2018Drug Barons Now Scared Of Ghana.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cDrug traffickers are now avoiding the use of Ghana as a transit point, Fernando Vas Ventura, leader of a European Union (EU) Security delegation has said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe made this observation after he led a five-member delegation to the country to assess the level of anti-narcotic trafficking operations at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).<\/p>\n
\u201cCommenting on the measures put in place by Ghana to check the drug menace, he was satisfied that the measures here are very high. No wonder drug traffickers are avoiding Ghana because of the sophisticated nature of the country\u2019s efforts at checking activities of drug pushers,\u201d The Ghanaian Times captured the EU delegation leader praising the NPP administration on the drug war.<\/p>\n
As part of efforts to check narcotic trafficking through Ghana, Mr. Ghartey indicated the country had to virtually give away its sovereignty by allowing the United Kingdom\u2019s Operation West Bridge to collaborate with the Ghanaian government at the KIA to fight the drug menace.<\/p>\n
He said although President Mills had bragged that his administration had acquitted itself well in the fight against narcotic trade, the claim had only been cosmetic as drug couriers had been freed under the current administration.
According to him, one Ahmed T. Walker who was nabbed with one kilogramme of cocaine at a hotel in Takoradi was granted bail by the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), questioning the commitment of the Mills administration to fight the cocaine trade.<\/p>\n
Mr. Joe Ghartey challenged the Mills administration to inform Ghanaians about the outcome of the 32 cases of narcotic drugs, the 38 culprits arrested and 483.6 kilograms of various narcotic drugs seized in 2009 by the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB).<\/p>\n
Welcoming government\u2019s decision to reopen investigations into the infamous MV Benjamin cocaine scandal, Mr. Joe indicated he only feared the presidential commission of enquiry would hit a snag like the Ghana@ 50 probe.<\/p>\n
He was at a loss as to why President Mills would again choose the option of a commission of enquiry to investigate a matter like cocaine disappearance when a High Court had ruled that evidence from such enquiry could not be used in court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe from the Minority side welcome the decision of the president to investigate the cocaine cases but we do not think that a government that is committed to fighting the cocaine menace will take the option of a commission of enquiry,\u201d Mr. Joe Ghartey stated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The rest is here:
\nMinority Exposes Mills<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE ENDLESS battle over which administration waged a relentless war against narcotic drugs took centre stage in Parliament yesterday as the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) jabbed President Atta Mills for peddling half-truths on the cocaine menace in the country. In an emotionally-charged and highly-animated debate on President Atta Mills\u2019 state of the nation address, Minority spokesman on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Joe Ghartey indicated that the president had twisted facts on the fight against cocaine in Ghana. Joe Ghartey, who is also Member of Parliament (MP) for Esikadu\/Ketan and a former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, indicated that President Mills\u2019 narrations on some cocaine issues including the supposed 77 parcels of cocaine on MV Benjamin vessel and disappearance of cocaine from Police vault were fallacious<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n
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In an emotionally-charged and highly-animated debate on President Atta Mills\u2019 state of the nation address, Minority spokesman on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Joe Ghartey indicated that the president had twisted facts on the fight against cocaine in Ghana. 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In an emotionally-charged and highly-animated debate on President Atta Mills\u2019 state of the nation address, Minority spokesman on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Joe Ghartey indicated that the president had twisted facts on the fight against cocaine in Ghana. 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