The Member of Parliament for Effia, Isaac Boamah-Nyarko, has called for a parliamentary probe into the operational challenges facing the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), arguing that piecemeal interventions will not address the institution’s broader funding and logistical constraints.
According to the MP, NACOC’s budgetary allocations have declined significantly over the years, leaving the commission without critical equipment and facilities needed to effectively combat drug trafficking.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s Breakfast Daily on Wednesday, September 30, he cited inadequate vehicles, scanners and drug-testing laboratories among the challenges affecting the commission.
Mr Boamah-Nyarko said NACOC is compelled to rely on third-party laboratories to test suspected narcotics seized during operations because of inadequate laboratory capacity.
He also raised concerns about the commission’s vehicle fleet, claiming that NACOC has only about 26 or 27 vehicles nationwide and that many of them are in poor condition.
“They don’t have vehicles to be able to go and chase. The total fleet of vehicles across the country is about 26, 27, and they are not in good condition,” he said.
The Effia MP further questioned the operational preparedness of some NACOC offices, particularly in dealing with suspects who may be armed.
He claimed that the NACOC facility in Takoradi, for instance, lacked adequate weapons and other equipment to support enforcement operations.
“If you go to Takoradi and you check their armoury, they don’t even have weapons. So you are chasing people who are dealing in drugs, who are heavily armed, and you don’t have all of these logistics,” he said.
Mr Boamah-Nyarko argued that the challenges required a comprehensive institutional assessment rather than being addressed through individual parliamentary questions.
“If you don’t have a parliamentary probe or inquiry and deal with these issues frontally, then the Executive will continue to do the same. The probe is to look at the institutional lapses and the real issues,” he said.
He said a parliamentary inquiry would provide an opportunity to examine NACOC’s funding, equipment, infrastructure and operational capacity as part of a broader assessment of Ghana’s response to illicit drug trafficking.
The MP described the situation as requiring urgent institutional attention and maintained that addressing the underlying challenges would be more effective than dealing with them on a case-by-case basis.
