No evidence of weapon stockpiling in A/R - Police

There is no evidence to prove that people are stockpiling arms and ammunition in the Ashanti Region, Regional PRO of the Police Command ASP Mohammed Tanko has said.

“We do not have any concrete evidence that there are a lot of weapons that have been piled up in this region,” he noted.

He, however, explained that following the shooting of a police corporal recently and the arrests of people with guns and ammunition, “it would be logical for people to draw that conclusion”.

ASP Tanko was reacting to the Small Arms Commission’s latest report calling for the need for security to clamp down on the proliferation and spread of small arms and light weapons in the region.

The Commission warned that the increasing number of arms and ammunition in the region could lead to political violence as the country prepares for the November 7 presidential and parliamentary polls.

This also follows news of a number of arrests made by the Regional Police Command of truckloads of rifles and large quantities of ammunition.

The commission called for some attention on vigilante groups, who normally use such arms to commit crime and cause chaos during elections.

Director of the Small Arms Commission Mr Jones Borteye Applerh indicated that security agencies must put in more efforts in order to prevent any crisis.

“The commission did a study on the level of small arms proliferation in Ghana and 2.3 million weapons were found to be in civilian hands. What borders us now is why Kumasi has become an attraction for assault weapons. One of the triggers for weapons [movement] in West Africa is elections. Any country going into elections must be extremely watchful. Most of these vigilante groups sell their services to anyone who is interested, including the politicians,” he said Friday on May 20 on Joy FM.

ASP Tanko, however, allayed fears of attacks by vigilante groups, indicating that the police was not aware of any groups in the region, which use sophisticated weapons.

“I do not know of any vigilante groups operating in the Ashanti Region. But if, indeed, we have such groups working with sophisticated weapons, then it is a very dangerous development. But the Ashanti Regional Police is not sleeping. We do a lot of intelligence gathering and mount various operations. If there were any vigilante groups, by the level of our intelligence, we would be able to pick the signals and deal with [them]. However, we are not ruling it out, so, if there is anyone with information on any of such groups and they bring it to us, we will be happy,” he stated.

Some 320 AK47 rifles and two sets of magazines were impounded by the police in the Northern Region recently.

The weapons were intercepted as they were being transported from the Upper East Region to the Ashanti Regional capital, Kumasi.

In December last year, a 72-year-old Burkinabe, named Moro Sata, was arrested by police after the Manhyia Divisional Command retrieved arms including 11 AK47 assault rifles, 10 G3 guns, an M15, and other light machine guns from his vehicle.

According to the police, some of the weapons could be mounted on pickup trucks. There were others, the police said, which could be used to shoot down aircraft at close range.