Veep: Government taking measures to stamp put drug trade

Accra, April 15, GNA - Vice President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday announced that government was adopting additional measures to tackle and stamp out the drug trade in Ghana. As part of the measures, the Narcotics Control Board is to be restructured under a new management and scanners are to be placed at the export and import points to detect any hidden illegal drug in containers.

Vice President Mahama announced the measures when Mr Bernardino Leon, Secretary General to the Presidency of the Spanish government, led a five-man delegation to pay a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu, in Accra.

The Vice President solicited the assistance of the Spanish government to deal with the drug trade in Ghana and said the nation would need both logistics and expert assistance to deal with it head-on. Vice President Mahama said some of the illegal narcotic drugs that came into Ghana were in containers but less than 10 per cent of containers were scanned.

He also spoke on the possibility of training sniff dogs to detect any hidden narcotic drug.

The Vice President spoke on a wide range of areas of collaboration between the two countries mentioning agriculture and transfer of technical assistance to Ghana. He said agriculture was one of the priority areas of government which had become more necessary because of the current global food crisis.

Vice President Mahama said Ghana made a huge net of food imports in excess of over one billion dollars and appealed to Spain to assist Ghana to expand agricultural farm land.

Consequently, there is the need to move away from rain-fed agriculture to all round irrigation and expand farmlands in order to meet the food needs of the nation. He spoke of the Alliance for Green Revolution headed by Mr Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General, under which 25 million dollars had been devoted to the development of the agricultural sector. Mr Leon said Spain was happy to strengthen its collaboration with Ghana and the areas discussed would be considered for necessary action. He lauded the ties between the two nations and pledged the assistance of Spain to help stamp out the narcotics trade in Ghana. 15 April 09