<<Print>>

The Paga Border Taxi Rank was thrown into a state of shock and chaos on Sunday morning, when some five armed young men suspected to be robbers stormed the area from the Burkina-Faso side of the border and robbed some persons of their monies in various currencies. This is the second time a robbery incident has occurred around the border within the last six months. The first one took place at Dakola in Burkina-Faso, a few meters away from the Paga Border and yet border patrol personnel from Paga and Dakola could not respond and so no arrests were made, just like the latest one. An eyewitness told DAILY GUIDE that the young men who looked and sounded like Fulanis, appeared in a flash, armed with AK47s and pump action guns and took away huge amount of CFA, Ghana Cedi notes and other currencies. According to the eyewitness, three of the robbers stood at vantage points along the edges of the Paga Border Taxi Rank and kept firing their guns to scare people away, while two of them, armed with guns, rounded up the �Money Changers� and took away all their monies. This robbery, according to the eyewitness, was done within a period of 15 minutes. While the robbery was under way, personnel of the Border Patrol Team of the Ghana Immigration Service who were at post looked on helplessly. It rather took an effort from an officer of the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) to fire some rounds of gunshots to put some fear into the robbers, scaring them away. By the time police personnel from Navrongo got to the Paga Border, the robbers had already embarked on their operations and left, leaving their victims in utter shock. Personnel from the Paga Police Station, which is about three kilometers away from the border, could not rush to the robbery scene because most of the logistics for such operations are all being kept at the Divisional Headquarters in Navrongo. For some time now, members of the public, as well as some security personnel have described the personnel of the Border Petrol Team of the Ghana Immigration Service at Paga as not being effective and proactive in their work. Some of the Immigration Service Border Patrol Team in separate interviews with DAILY GUIDE complained about the lack of logistics which hampered their daily duties. �How do you expect a Border Patrol Team to go for a patrol operation with their bare hands? The criminals have become sophisticated in their daily operations and so it is only sensible that the personnel are also equipped with the needed logistics. The bill on the possession of arms by personnel of the Border Patrol teams has to be passed into law as soon as possible to enable the personnel use arms to fight crime at the border. Until that is done, they will not be proactive or useful to the nation,� the Ghana Immigration Service staff told DAILY GUIDE.