The Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons has raised grave concerns about arms in circulation indicating that about 20 percent of illegally manufactured weapons in circulation are from the nation�s security services.
According to the Commission, the porous nature of the record keeping and data management systems by the security services has led to the phenomenon, adding that per the records over 200,000 small arms are in the custody of civilians.
Analysts have described the situation as problematic as the December elections approach. Johnson Twum�Asante is a Senior Research Officer at the Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons and he told Citi News: �The difficulty is with our record keeping and data management system.�
He added: �We still keep this records in hand written form and we all know what can happen to data in this country. As a commission what we�re trying to do is to set up a digital computerised data based system for the police.
�We�ve been able to do this for five of these regions and even the five that we�ve done is not being effectively utilised.�
�We want to help them capture all these so that at the click of a button they can tell how many weapons have been issued even at Bunkurugu Yonyo or Zabzugu Tatale, sitting at the Police Headquarters. Even if the police issue it to everybody and there is crime and they retrieve a weapon, how to even trace the owner of that weapon is a problem,� Twum-Asante pointed out.
�You should not also rule out some miscreants within the security services.�
Twum-Asante further indicated to Citi News a marking system has been initiated by the Commission and will seek to help rectify the situation.
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