News:
August 23, 2017
Deputy Chairman of the Defense and Interior Committee of Parliament, Collins Owusu Amankwah says the time has come for Ghana to adopt the use of technology to begin collating data on the number of licensed firearms in the country.
The collation of accurate data, he noted, will help address issues of illicit arms with its attendant challenges for public safety.
“I am one of those who are of the view that we need to be more sophisticated, we need to have accurate data because people are holding guns with impunity” he observed.
The MP has therefore called on the Ministry of Interior to use technology to track firearms in the country to help curb situations of insecurity.
According to him the increasing incident of gun violence in the country demands a more tactical modus operandi by the Police and other security services to ensure safety of citizens in the country.
“We need to digitize the old manual way of retrieving and filing records. We need to computerize the system so that we can track all the arms in the system” he said.
The Manhyia North lawmaker advocates that people who possess arms should be questioned to ascertain where they acquire the arms from.
“We need to question them, where did you purchase this particular arm, be it gun, rifle, or whatever firearm we can talk of. We need to question people,” he said.
The National Commission on Small Arms and Light weapons indicated that there are about 2.3 million unlicensed arms in circulation in the country.
By Christian Kpesese/ghanamps.com