Ghana Commends ECOWAS’ Efforts To Regulate Arms Brokering In Sub-Region

Mrs Afi Azaratu Yakubu, the Executive Secretary, National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, has commended ECOWAS and the partners for producing a report, which provides an excellent basis for an in-depth discussion on arms brokering within West Africa.

The report and accompanying operational guidelines provide further basis for the Member States to elaborate laws and procedures to regulate brokering practices.

Mrs Yakubu said this during technical experts' meeting in Abuja, Nigeria on the Validation of Study Report on Arms Brokering in West Africa, organised by the ECOWAS Small Arms and Light Weapons Division, through the Organised Crime: West African Response to Trafficking Project.

It was to review and validate a draft study report and operational guidelines for regulating arms brokering in the ECOWAS.

Mrs Yakubu, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, explained that in many countries, because of the lack of regulation and controls, it was easy for small arms to fall into the hands of people, who used them use them to commit crimes in violation of international humanitarian or human rights laws or diverted them to the illicit market.

Recent global data indicates that the arms trade had seen a shift from direct contact between government officials or agents to the pervasive use of private intermediaries, who operated in a particularly globalised environment, often from multiple locations, she said.

The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs Information indicates that “contemporary traders, agents, brokers, shippers and financiers regularly combine their activities, making it difficult to clearly distinguish small arms trade from brokering and related activities”.

Mrs Yakubu said many countries had not enacted specific laws or regulations covering arms brokering within their systems of arms export, therefore, the ECOWAS Arms Brokering regulations would ensure that member states regulated the importation and exportation of arms and contributed to the reduction of illicit transfers and diversions into unauthorised hands.

Mr Piex Joseph Ahoba, the Head of ECOWAS Small Arms Division highlighted the importance of the regulation of arms brokering activities.

He said it was a key that national and regional efforts were geared towards preventing, combating, and eradicating illicit circulation, trafficking and proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons.

He expressed optimism that the meeting would elicit inputs that enriched the draft Operational Guidelines on Arms Brokering given the richness of the experts assembled.

The Organised Crime: West African Response to Trafficking (OCWAR-T) is an ECOWAS project, commissioned by the German Government and co-funded by the European Union.

GIZ jointly implements the OCWAR-T with the United Nations Development Programme, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Mines Advisory Group, International Centre for Migration Policy Development, Institute for Security Studies, and the Global Initiative Against Organised Crime.

Source: GNA