Ghana would benefit from European Union’s (EU) 14-million dollar programme, to combat drug trafficking in the country.
The Governance Advisor at EU, Mr Sortirios Bazikomwe, disclosed this at the opening of a four-day E-leaning workshop for 10 security officials in Accra, yesterday.
It is aimed at strengthening the capacity of the officials of law enforcement agencies in the fight of transnational organised crime.
The programme, funded by the EU and implemented by Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), also seeks to establish E-Learning equipment and services in ECOWAS countries, by providing Mobile Training Units (MTUs), set of computers, loaded with corporate training modules that can be used to deliver training and improve capacity of law enforcement agencies to fight drugs and crime.
The participants were drawn from the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), Police Service, Ghana Revenue Authority, Customs Division, Economic and Organised Crime Office and National Security.
Mr Bazikomwe said the EU is to support four project areas in ECOWAS with 53 million Euros, under its peace and security mandate.
He said the areas to be tackled are boarder management, trafficking, counter terrorism, and fight against money laundering.
Mr Bazikomwe indicated that “In order to fight effectively one of the major organised crimes affecting Europe and Africa, the European Union has since 2009 committed about 50 million Euros over 40 countries through the flagship cocaine Route programme in its efforts to fight against both organised crime and drug trafficking”, he added
The acting Executive Secretary of NACOB, Mr Francis Kofi Torkornoo, said the E-learning module was crucial for law enforcement agencies towards the fight against drug trafficking.
He said Ghana is the first country to benefit from the MTUs form of project and could be used to deliver corporate training modules, and improve the capacity of law enforcement agencies to fight drugs and crime.
Mr Torkornoo said the combating of drug trafficking was a shared responsibility and called for more collaboration between agencies.
A representative of UNODC, Mr Jullien Woirin, commended Ghana for its commitment in the fight against drug trafficking.
He said the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) project on, ‘Support to ECOWAS regional Action Plan on illicit drug trafficking crime related to it and drug abuse in West Africa’ would help in combating the drug trafficking.
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