Former Head of Information and Public Affairs at Ghana's Embassy in Washington, D.C., Kofi Tonto said officials who knew about a security gap at the port should be fired by President John Dramani Mahama for making Ghana embroiled in an international cocaine scandal.

His comments follow Mahama's September 17, 2026 security briefing over the seizure of nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine in France from a container shipped from Ghana.

Ten people are currently being held as investigations continue, including four officers of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority.

Tonto said he would have taken immediate action against officials who advised the President that a problematic policy had existed for two years without being addressed.

"In fact, if I were the president, I would have fired all the people who advised me that day. I would have fired them immediately," he said.

According to Tonto, the bigger issue is not only the alleged weakness in the policy, but that those responsible for overseeing the system allegedly knew about it and failed to alert the President.

"They are telling me that they knew there was a bad policy and they supervised over that bad policy until the country faced embarrassment, global embarrassment, before telling me, the president, that there is a lacuna or a lapse at the port," he said.

He compared the situation to supervisors allowing goods to be stolen from a company while keeping the owner unaware of the problem.

"If you close this loophole, you'll stop losing that $10 million. How would you feel?" he asked, using the example to explain why he believes the delay in addressing the alleged lapse is serious.

Tonto described the situation as a major failure by officials who were expected to understand and monitor the system.

"They did absolutely nothing about it until we faced a global embarrassment," he said.

For him, the cocaine seizure should therefore lead to questions about who knew what, when they knew it and why action was not taken earlier.