Calls for Presidential commission on the cocaine saga

Accra, Aug. 25 GNA - Mr. Kyeretwie Opoku, Legal Practitioner and Member of the Committee for Joint Action (CJA) on Friday called on President J.A Kufuor to set up a commission of enquiry into the recent Cocaine scandal, which has hit the country.

He said the current Justice Georgina Wood Committee that is investigation the case do not have the necessary powers to subpoena or compel witnesses who refused to appear before it.

Mr Opoku was speaking at public forum organized by the CJA to express certain legitimate concerns about the work of the Justice George Wood Committee tasked to unravel the issue of the missing cocaine on the vessel, MV Benjamin and other related narcotic issues in Accra. The forum that attracted activists from the various political parties was on the theme: "The cocaine crisis - Finding the truth". He said the current influx of narcotics drugs from the foreign sources into the country shows a kind of systemic failure on the part of the national security agencies.

He cited a United States State Department report on Ghana for the past five years in relation to narcotic drugs revealing a 40 percent rise in arrests and interdiction at the country's ports of entry. Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, Member of Parliament for Tamale South said President Kufour had failed the country by not treating the current cocaine saga as a public interest matter.

He said the attitude of the government in relation to the cocaine issue did not show any seriousness by the current administration in fighting the drug trade in the country.

He called for collaboration between national law enforcement agencies and other foreign organizations to stem the tide of drugs flow into the country and fight the narcotic menace. "Indeed we are in a national crisis and we need a national solution this problem," he added.

Speaker after speaker who took turns to address the forum reiterated their call on government to set up a commission of enquiry with enough authority to deal with all the cocaine issues that were currently being investigated by the Georgina Wood Committee. Mr Kwesi Pratt, a Member of the Socialists Forum of Ghana and CJA took a swipe at President Kufuor's comments that Ghanaians should praise his government for signing the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) compact, which he said, was the biggest farce that the nation had ever seen.

He said the MCA was not a panacea to the nations problem since the same amount of money was realized under the HIPC initiative and nothing has changed in the country.