Warning that Ghana risks turning into a permanent transit hub for international cartels, the Minority in Parliament has served notice that it will request an emergency sitting to establish a bipartisan investigation into the nation’s porous ports and security operations.
The initiative—laid before the House by Hon. Habib Iddrisu, MP for Tolon and First Deputy Minority Whip—seeks to form an Ad-Hoc Committee under Article 103 of the Constitution and Order 262 of the Standing Orders of Parliament.
Speaking on behalf of the Minority, Hon. John Ntim Fordjour, Ranking Member on Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, stressed that drug cartels actively target weak security infrastructures. “Every prosecution that stops at the couriers tells them that the risk is low,” he stated, adding that traffickers choose the path of least resistance and every undetected consignment signals to cartels that Ghana’s ports are porous.
Hon. Fordjour underscored the severe domestic repercussions of allowing illicit trade to expand across the nation’s borders, warning that national security and public health are directly threatened.
“Transit routes do not stay clean. Wherever drugs move, some remain behind. They spill into local markets, into our communities, our campuses and our streets,” he said. He emphasized that the youth will bear the brunt of inaction, seeing a generation built to develop the country damaged by addiction, drawn into crime, and lost to opportunity. “Ghana has too much to lose to treat this as a distant problem for someone else’s coastline,” Hon. Fordjour added.
Beyond the parliamentary probe, the Minority is calling on the government to immediately publish full and verifiable data on all drug seizures, arrests, and prosecutions since January 2025. Hon. Fordjour insisted that government must provide real-time, primary-sourced data so citizens no longer have to rely on foreign customs officers to learn about security lapses at their own borders.
The proposed parliamentary inquiry aims to conduct an exhaustive investigation. It will examine how each illicit consignment was assembled, inspected, and cleared, and why scanning and risk-profiling systems failed. It will investigate the explicit role of every agency, shipping line, freight forwarder, and clearing agent handling the cargoes.
Additionally, it will look into whether financiers and organizers are being actively pursued and their proceeds traced under Acts 1019 and 1044.
Finally, it will examine the actions and potential complicity of state agencies, with the ultimate goal of recommending structural reforms to close operational gaps permanently.
Framing the issue as a national priority rather than a political debate, the Ranking Member urged lawmakers across the aisle to unite behind the motion.
“We say to the Majority this is not a partisan matter. The trafficker does not check party cards. The young person destroyed by addiction does not ask which side of the house his Member sits on,” he stated.
Asserting that a transparent government should have nothing to fear, Hon. Fordjour challenged both sides of the House to act decisively. “If it is not, the people of Ghana deserve to know why. We will be in the Chamber and we intend to see this through. History will judge this Parliament by what it does today,” he added.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
