Minority asks government to publish full drug seizure, arrest and prosecution data since January 2025

Pinned summary · as of 04:54

Parliament's Minority has told the government to lay open its narcotics enforcement record, asking for complete and checkable numbers on seizures, arrests and prosecutions dating from January 2025. Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, who holds the Ranking Member post on the Defence and Interior Committee, voiced the demand for the caucus when he met journalists in Parliament on Tuesday, 29 September.

What we know

• The Minority in Parliament is calling on the Executive to release verifiable data covering every drug seizure, arrest and prosecution logged in Ghana since January 2025.
• Rev. Fordjour presented the demand to journalists at Parliament on Tuesday, 29 September. Onua Online and Kessben Online say he is the caucus lead on the Defence and Interior Committee.
• The caucus wants the numbers published as events happen and traced to primary records. It argues that open figures would let citizens check for themselves how the government is doing against the drug trade.
• The Minority said the aim is for Ghana to stop relying on overseas customs officials for a picture of its own frontiers, and asked that the data be released “so that we no longer learn the state of our own borders from foreign customs officers”.
• Onua Online and Kessben Online report that the caucus plans to keep the matter alive in Parliament. “We would be in the Chamber and we intend to see this through,” the Minority said.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  Citi Newsroom reported that the demand came ahead of an emergency sitting of Parliament on 29 September, called after a Minority petition over recent narcotics seizures linked to Ghana. MyJoyOnline and The Ghana Report carry the same account, but no other report has verified that the sitting was held or what it decided.
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  Citi Newsroom linked the sitting to the discovery of nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine in Dunkirk, France, inside a container said to have left Ghana. The Ghana Report credits French Customs with the seizure and dates it to 10 September. Other reports on the Minority's demand make no mention of it.
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  According to Citi Newsroom, Rev. Fordjour said any parliamentary committee should be able to summon witnesses, compel documents and sit in public unless national security requires otherwise. He also reportedly said an inquiry should look at systemic failings, and at whether state agencies may have played a part, while leaving matters already in court alone. This account has not appeared in the other independent reports.
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  Citi Newsroom reported Rev. Fordjour as saying that Parliament should not stand aside, and that it has a constitutional duty to demand answers instead of waiting for Executive investigations. The Minority also reportedly asked MPs on both sides of the House to back the effort and not treat narcotics as a party matter. Only Citi Newsroom among the independent reports carries these points.
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  MyJoyOnline described Rev. Fordjour as the Minority spokesperson on Defence and Interior and reported him warning that weak security systems could make Ghana a major transit route for narcotics, and that the Dunkirk find raised doubts about border controls. The Ghana Report separately questioned how containers leaving the country are processed, inspected and cleared. Neither point has been reported elsewhere.
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  Kessben Online reported the Minority as saying that the record of this Parliament will be judged on how it acts on the matter. No other report carries the remark.

Why it matters for Ghana

If the figures were published, citizens, journalists and MPs could judge for themselves how well Ghana's ports and borders are policed, instead of relying on announcements made abroad. The demand also presses the Executive to account for what it has done on narcotics since January 2025. How far any parliamentary inquiry goes would decide how much of that record, including the part played by state agencies, is aired in public.