The Deputy Minister of the Interior, Dr Kwasi Apea-Kubi, has announced that a cabinet memo on the Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) is ready for consideration.

"The good news is that a Cabinet memorandum on the Convention has been prepared for consideration and adoption after which it would be sent to Parliament for ratification," he said.

He was speaking at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region, at a synergy workshop organised by the Ghana National Commission on Small Arms for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Defence and the Interior.

The Deputy Minister’s statement comes against the background of international criticisms that Ghana has been slow in ratifying the Convention.

Dr Apea-Kubi said the previous Parliament could not ratify the convention before it was dissolved in January this year.

Civil Society groupings had said Ghana was hindering the enforcement of the sub-regional Convention.

They expressed concern about Ghana, which had always played a front role in sub-regional initiatives, including small arms control.

Ghana was a principal signatory to the Convention and the first country to host a consultative meeting on the ECOWAS Small Arms Control Programme (ECOSAP).

The Deputy Minister said the issue of SALW proliferation was of utmost concern to the government and classified as vital in the definition and implementation of policies to promote collective security and sustainable peace.

Dr Apea-Kubi said Ghana had initiated series of interventions to promote human security, through the fight against the proliferation and trafficking of SALW in the country and the sub-region.

He therefore called on the parliamentarians to support government’s effort in combating the proliferation and the processes leading to the ratification of the Convention.

Mr Daouda Toure, United Nations Resident Co-ordinator, noted that the fight against SALW demanded collective efforts of all individuals, including parliamentarians, governments, security institutions, learning and research institutions to support the initiatives.

He urged other regional bodies like ECOSAP, civil society groupings, West Africa Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA) and West Africa Network of Journalists for Security and Development to intensify their advocacy mechanism.

Lt. Col. Ohene Asare (Rtd), Chairman of the National Commission on Small Arms (NATCOM), said Ghana, like most countries in the world, was worried about the proliferation of small arms, which tended to pose a threat to the security of countries.

He said these small arms move from war-torn areas and find use in various types of conflicts, stressing that in line with the global community, Ghana had established NATCOM with the broad mandate of managing issues relating to small arms, especially their manufacture and cross-boundary movement.

He cautioned that the relative peace in the country should not be taken for granted saying land and chieftaincy disputes abound in nearly every region of the country.

The workshop, sponsored by the UNDP, is to build the capacity of the parliamentarians on the dangers of proliferation of the small arms and prepare the legislators on the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons.

Seven out of the nine countries that have so far ratified the convention are Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Guinea and Liberia have also ratified it but are yet to deposit their instrument of ratification with the ECOWAS Commission.

The Convention seeks to prevent and combat the excessive and destabilising accumulation of small arms and light weapons within ECOWAS; strengthen the efforts for the control of SALW; and to consolidate the gains of the declaration of the moratorium on the importation, exportation and manufacture of small arms and its code of conduct.

Other objectives are to promote trust between the member states through concerted and transparent action on the control of SALW; to build institutional and operational capacities of the ECOWAS Executive Secretariat and the Member states in efforts to curb the proliferation of SALW, ammunitions and other related materials.

It also seeks to promote the exchange of SALW information and cooperation among member states. Ghana currently hosts the civil society network -WAANSA secretariat.

GNA/AMA