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The Ghana National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons is organising a two-day workshop on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which was ratified by Parliament in July 2015 to regulate the trade of ammunitions.

The workshop which brought together Senior Officers from the various security institutions including the Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, Ghana Immigration Service, Bureau of National Investigations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as Civil Society, was one of the measures aimed at addressing the capacity gaps in Ghana as far as the implementation of the ATT was concerned.

Ghana has since December 23, 2015, deposited her instrument of ratification at the United Nations (UN) Secretariat, making the country the 79th State Party to the ATT.

The ATT, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in April 2013, establishes common international standards for the regulation of the global trade in conventional arms to promote world peace, security, stability, and to reduce human suffering caused by irresponsible and illicit arms trade.

These arms include warships, combat vehicles, battle tanks, combat aircraft large calibre artillery systems, attack helicopters, missiles, and missile launchers, small arms and light weapons, ammunition parts and components.

Mr Mark Owen Wayongo, Minister for the Interior, said obviously the ATT brings along enormous obligations which calls for some level of capacity building, because it joins State Parties, to put in place export and import control systems to implement the provisions of the Treaty, but there were serious gaps in the capabilities of most developing countries including Ghana, compared the relatively matured structures that pertains in most developed exporting nations.

He said this calls for cooperation, collaboration, intelligence and information sharing among States, and realising this assistance was sought and received from the EU-ATT Outreach Project, with a team of experts coming down to assist in building up of the needed capacities for the effective implementation of the Treaty.

Mr Wayongo thanked the European Union (EU) and Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) of Germany for accepting to support Ghana’s quest to successfully implement the ATT.

He said the quest to implement the ATT was also aimed at curbing the incidents of arms getting into wrong hands, and therefore strengthening the capacities of the various security agencies and institutions, in the area of planning, monitoring and serious attention to the safe storage, handling, transportation and disposal of arms, was critical to ensure preparedness to fight diversions of arms and ammunitions.

According to Mr Wayongo, Ghana in 2015, saw an increase in weapon seizers by security agencies, with over one million ammunitions and more than 60 non-civilian weapons of various types seized by the Police in December alone.

He said the most intriguing and disturbing aspect of the seizures was that these are weapons used only by the security agencies, and not those used by civilians.

“Whilst commending the security agencies for the excellent work that led to the seizures of those illicit weapons, there is the need for the entire West African sub-region to join forces to combat the proliferation of weapons which could further fuel conflicts and armed violence in an already fragile sub-region,” Mr wayongo said.

He advocated that weapon management should be an area of concern and a matter of priority to every country in the West African Region.

He said Ghana has taken the lead in this effort by first embarking on the marking of her weapons, which would contribute immensely to efforts at preventing their diversion from armoires without the requisite authorisation.

Mr Marvin Diefenbach EU-ATT Outreach Team Leader to Ghana, said Ghana’s existing structures were impressive to ensure the smooth implementation of the Treaty, and commended the requisite authorities for their cooperation during the assistance period.

Brigadier General Francis Agyenfra (Rtd), who chaired the opening session, expressed his appreciation to the EU-ATT Outreach Project team for their commitment, and also for the fact Ghana was selected among a few countries to benefit from BAFA/EU –ATT Outreach Project.