Following the directive by President John Mahama for the Narcotics Control Commission to be restored to Ghana’s list of Port Inspection Agencies, NACOC has returned with a mean attitude.
In response to the recent jumbo-drug bust in Dunkirk that has been traced to Ghana, the Commission has tailored a multi-layered search and surveillance regime that should give nightmares to any wannabe drug mule dreaming of trafficking through Ghana’s ports.
Alexander Twum Barima, Deputy Director General, Enforcement and Elimination, explains the new regime and its mechanism.
“Before you travel out of Accra International Airport, from today, whether with a local flight or an international flight, you will be scanned thoroughly by Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) officers. In the daytime, we use, mostly, the scanners, but in the evening when the traffic is huge, you will see our K-9 (sniffer dogs).
So, we have more or less two sections of scanning – it’s either you are going through the K-9 scanners or the electronic scanners.”
Meanwhile, “this screening is different from the additional profiling that passengers will go through inside the Departure Hall (itself),” he added.
NACOC returns to the port front after it was removed from the list of government agencies deployed to Ghana’s ports to undertake port inspection in 2018.
The knock-on effect has been resultant porosity at the ports that led to international drug cartels turning Ghana into a loose transit point for hard drugs.
Matters eventually came to a head when 1.3 tonnes of cocaine busted at Dunkirk by French authorities were traced back to Ghana.
It was against this background that President Mahama ordered the redeployment of NACOC at the country’s ports.
Explaining NACOC’s new inspection procedures, Mr. Twum Barima said the inspection that is done before passengers enter the airport premises is an intrusive scanning of baggage. “Over there, you won’t see our officers touching you or trying to see if you have something concealed on your body. So you will put your baggage on any one of the two electronic scanning machines. But during peak time, from 4 pm to 10 pm, the traffic is quite huge, so that one, we do a 3-lane scanner if you are going to the K-9 scanning, that one, you drop your bag, step back and allow the dog to do its work. After that, you take your bag and go inside to check-in.”
Subsequently, after this check, passengers will go through immigration checks, after which aviation security will also perform checks.
“After that, you are going to the boarding unit; over there, too, you may find our officers to do what we call the individual profiling,” he said**.**
Mr. Barima, who has been speaking on various media platforms, said the new protocols will apply countrywide.
“It is not just here; it is going to happen at all the entry points into the country as the president has directed.”
Meanwhile, the scans and checks are not only applicable to people exiting the country, but also to travellers entering the country.
“K-9 will also scan you when you are coming back from abroad before immigration assessment,” he said.