Former Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, has clarified that officials of the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) were not removed from the Tema Port under the previous administration.
Speaking on TV3’s The KeyPoints on September 19, Mr Nitiwul said NACOC officers remained at the port but were only prevented from participating in physical container inspections.
“NACOC was not removed from the port. They were stopped from inspecting containers,” he said.
Mr Nitiwul explained that the decision was part of broader port reforms introduced in 2018. According to him, the presence of over 20 state agencies involved in inspecting containers at the ports caused heavy delays and complaints from importers and the business community.
He said government, through a Cabinet memo, reduced the inspection agencies to just three – the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, and the Ghana Standards Authority – to ease congestion.
“We wanted to prevent the inconvenience caused to customers and the corruption,” he stated, adding that multiple inspections had become an avenue for extortion and bureaucratic delays.
Background
Mr Nitiwul’s comments come in the wake of renewed debate over port security following the interception of a container of plastic waste originating from Ghana at the Port of Dunkirk in France on September 7. French Customs discovered 3.9 metric tonnes of cocaine valued at about €225 million concealed in the shipment.
The incident has put the spotlight on the 2018 decision to exclude NACOC from the Joint Container Inspection regime, a move security analysts have long criticised for weakening Ghana’s ability to detect narcotics.
Following the France bust, President John Dramani Mahama convened a high-level emergency meeting at the Presidency on Wednesday, September 17, with stakeholders in national security, narcotics control and the transport sector.
At that meeting, the President directed that NACOC be immediately reinstated to the Joint Container Inspection regime. 8788
“You cannot fight narcotics if the lead anti-narcotics agency is taken out of the port,” a senior government official said after the meeting.
President Mahama also gave all security and regulatory agencies operating at Ghana’s ports two weeks to submit a comprehensive framework to harmonise and coordinate operations, and announced the formation of a Joint Taskforce to streamline inspections and reduce bureaucratic delays. 8788
NACOC has since arrested three suspects in Ghana in connection with the 3.9-tonne cocaine shipment, which French and Dutch authorities have linked to fugitive Dutch drug lord Jos Leijdekkers, known as “Bolle Jos.”
