The West African Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA) has called on the Ministry of Interior for Ghana to expedite the passage of a law regulating the purchase of guns and ammunition in the country.
Speaking at a media engagement on Friday, February 21, 2025, the Managing Director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), the mother organisation of WAANSA, Johnson Asante-Twum, said that the current bill on regulating small arms and ammunition in the country has stalled at the ministry.
He said that a bill to regulate arms in the country, the Ghana Arms Bill, which was compiled by the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons (NACSA), has been in the ministry for years and has gone through the hands of 8 executive secretaries.
He claimed the bill has not been sent to Parliament to be passed into law because some persons at the ministry feel it would give the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons too much power.
These people, he claimed, do not want to let go of the role of licensing guns in the country, which is supposed to be the duty of the commission and are frustrating the passage of the bill, which has been accepted by all stakeholders into law.
“The commission, as it sits there today, has no role or whatever in the importation or any form of transfer of weapons in this country. The ministry which is in charge of policy is licensing weapons to individuals…
“The ministry’s role of policy… has taken over that function and they don’t want to let it go,” he said.
The Managing Director also pointed out that Ghanaians often blame the commission when issues of gun regulation come up but they do not know that the commission has no power because of the current laws establishing it.
“The commission has no role or whatever on how many guns are licensed or how guns are licensed, how guns are imported into the country, and there is a need for this to change… everybody thinks that it is the commission that does these things when issues come up, but it is not the case, and that must change.
“The Ministry of Interior cannot continue doing that and then when there is a problem, they run away from it and then all of you are thinking (sic). The commission does not (regulate guns), they don’t have the authority to do so. The commission hears about weapons that come into the country as rumour… because nobody gives them any official record or responsibility,” he said.
Asante-Twum also pointed out that the law establishing the commission, which was passed in 1962, and current laws on guns in the country have so many flaws, including “no limit to the number of arms acquired by an individual”.
He added that under the current laws, every person, provided s/he can afford, can buy a gun even if the person has no training on how to use it.
He also stated that if care is not taken, Ghana will start manufacturing weapons in the country without any law to regulate it; while adding that Ghana cannot continue fighting 2025 crimes with laws enacted in 1962.
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