The Sector Commander of the Customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) at the Tema Port, Confidence Nyadzi, has dismissed media report that 500 kilogrammes of cocaine worth about $30 million dollars has disappeared from the Port.
The Finder newspaper reported that 10 bags of cocaine, hidden in a consignment of rice with an estimated street value of about $30million, has vanished from the Tema Port under mysterious circumstances.
The Finder newspaper continued that a ship carrying some containers with cocaine onboard arrived in Tema Port in December 2016, but the suspected cocaine vanished before February 23, 2017, when all stakeholders conducted compulsory tests on the container.
But speaking in an interview with Eye on Port, Confidence Nyadzi stated that thorough investigations conducted by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), the Ministry of Interior and other sector institutions, revealed that no container with cocaine had been detained at the Port.
“It is very misleading, customs has no knowledge of any narcotic drug which was imported into the port,” he said.
He noted that the customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority had always acted swiftly on consignments which are believed to be containing narcotic drugs.
“Throughout the history of customs, any time we are giving information on narcotics, we always come out with clean reports, not a single gram had gotten missing in customs’ hand before. We have always effected the appropriate arrest and I have accounted for it appropriately but in this case where the NACOB choose not to share intelligence, for whatever reason, I do not know. We do not have any information to the effect that there was narcotic drugs in any container,” he averred.
Confidence Nyadzi called for the sharing of intelligence by state agencies to nib the importation of banned substances in the bud into the country.
“Normally, when they give us intelligence, then we zoom into the particular area where we have to focus and it yields results. If an agency has intelligence and refuses to share it, I think it should take responsibility and stop trying to shift responsibility elsewhere,” he stated.
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