Security Consultant: Ghana Becoming Hostile to Drug Traffickers

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Security Consultant and former Intelligence Officer Richard Kumadoe has endorsed the government’s tougher surveillance at Ghana’s ports and airports. He spoke in an interview with The Vaultz News after the seizure of 46.7 kilogrammes of cocaine at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport.

Mr Kumadoe argued that sophisticated scanners, K9 units and closer cooperation among security agencies are making Ghana a harder place for trafficking networks to operate. His view rests partly on a visit to the airport, and he cautioned that security needs constant review and steady resources.

“What I saw is that they want to make Ghana a very hostile environment for crime and drug-related activities.”

Mr Kumadoe named border security as a central part of the fight against transnational organised crime, particularly the movement of narcotics through international ports and airports.

He pointed to the earlier announcement by the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) that it had installed sophisticated scanners across the ports and deployed K9 units to improve detection.

He described the equipment as highly capable. The scanners, he explained, can detect concealed substances and objects that conventional screening could miss, including items hidden in luggage or on a person.

Mr Kumadoe drew on a personal visit to the airport. He observed the newly installed systems at work and noted the cooperation among agencies in the screening areas. He disclosed that he also saw “the interagency collaborations at the scanner rooms at the harbours.”

The arrangement covers passenger movement, body screening and baggage inspection, he noted, with the relevant agencies working together at each point. The consultant argued that the government’s approach goes beyond hardware. He referred to recent Ghana Police Service operations in which officers arrested suspects in drug cases.

He explained the logic of the strategy. A person who tries to move narcotics through Ghana risks arrest inside the country, he stated, or abroad through information that Ghanaian agencies share with their counterparts in the destination country.

In his view, that combination of surveillance, intelligence sharing and enforcement could discourage traffickers from treating Ghana as a convenient passage.

His assessment arrives after the Beirut case, where a Syrian national who travelled from Accra reportedly carried the cocaine. The seizure has fed public questions about Ghana’s detection arrangements.

Mr Kumadoe earlier argued that the Beirut cocaine seizure shows Ghana’s intelligence coordination works, and government officials make a related case. Hon. Agalga has attributed a surge in narcotics busts to the NDC’s strategic measures.

Mr Kumadoe stated that he found no significant operational weakness in the arrangements he observed. The presence of scanners, K9 units, and coordinated personnel, he noted, reflects an effort to build an integrated border control system.

He did not treat that finding as final. Periodic reviews must test for vulnerabilities and prepare personnel for new threats, he explained. “Security management, as I’ve always said, is a continuous process.”

The measure of any security institution, he argued, lies in its operational results and not in the mere existence of policies, equipment or institutional arrangements. The absence of a visible weakness today, he added, does not rule out one appearing later.

Mr Kumadoe acknowledged that security agencies will keep needing additional resources to maintain and improve their operations at ports, airports and other strategic points. He named no specific shortage in the scanning infrastructure or the interagency arrangements that needs urgent action.

His position puts the weight on protecting the investments already made. As trafficking networks change their methods, he argued, Ghana’s response will depend on advanced detection technology, steady coordination, firm enforcement and honest evaluation of results.

Mr Kumadoe’s endorsement arrives as the Minority in Parliament pushes in another direction. It challenged the Speaker’s ruling that dismissed its motion for a narcotics probe, after the Speaker dismissed the motion in September. The House has since resumed, and the Minority has filed a fresh motion on the matter.

The Minority argues that Parliament must examine institutional and security failures that may have let drug consignments through. Mr Kumadoe’s observations point to a system he sees as improving. The fate of the new motion will show how far Parliament shares either view.

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