Government would build the capacity of staff of the Gaming Commission in monitoring and investigation to make them effective and efficient in the discharge of their duty.
Mr Ambrose Dery, the Minister of Interior, Thursday said government was considering collaborating with international institutions to learn from best international practices and integrate the knowledge acquired into the activities of the Commission to ensure efficient service delivery.
The Minister said this when he paid a familiarization tour of the Commission’s office in Kasoa in the Central Region.
He expressed concern about the spate of underage children involved in gambling at the expense of their education saying the Ministry was working with the local government to ensure that the menace was addressed.
The Minister said it was the agenda of government to ensure that every child goes to school, hence the introduction of compulsory free education and that ministry would ensure that the challenge of keeping children out of school was prevented.
Mr Dery said some of these illegal gaming activities were manned by foreign companies and that there was the need for the Commission to be strengthened to enable them collaborate with other agencies including the Immigration Service and the Police Service in its operations.
In view of that the Mr Derry announced that the Ministry of Finance had given approval to recruit 2,000 Police personnel to augment the strength of the service in ensuring peace and security in the country.
He commended the staff for their commitment to duty and urged them to continue to work diligently by adhering to the Commission’s Act in preventing illegal gaming activities and underage gambling.
He pledged to give a vehicle to the Kasoa office to facilitate their work after the office mentioned logistics challenge as one of the factors affecting their operations.
Mr Kobby Annan, the Deputy Commissioner of Gaming Commission of Ghana, said the Commission was established with the purpose of regulating, controlling, monitoring and supervising the operations of games of chance in the country.
He said the location of the office in Kasoa was strategic because their research revealed that there were lots of illegal and underage gaming activities in the area.
Mr Annan said the Commission was planning to set up a satellite office in Cape Coast to facilitate its operations but mentioned lack of logistic as one of the main challenge facing the Commission.
Nana Kaabi Bonsu, the Regional Supervisor at Kasoa Gaming Commission, said the region through its operations had brought the activities of illegal gaming activities under control by 65 per cent, stating that with the needed logistic support they would perform more.
Source: BBC
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