Former Deputy Interior Minister, James Agalga has described as false claims that he gave approval for a company to import thousands of weapons into the country for private use.
In his view, he did not sign the delivery permit that allowed the company to bring arms into the country.
Mr Agalga accused the Information Minister, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah of being economical with the facts and playing partisan politics after the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) raised concerns about the importation of firearms into the country.
Mr Nkrumah at a news conference in Accra, Thursday accused the NDC of double standards after issuing permit for the importation of the arms they blame government for.
What broke the camel’s back, he explained, was that, the NDC issued the permit two days before handing over power.
But in a riposte, Mr Agalga on Adom FM’s morning show, Dwaso Nsem Friday said the Information Minister was “very disingenuous at the press conference.”
He maintained that, though he signed the permit, the New Patriotic Party government, two years in power should have done a security assessment before granting the delivery permit.
The Former Deputy Interior Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Bulsa North, said he did not err in granting license to a company which is a licensed arms dealer.
“The permit I issued was in 2017 but the date of importation and clearance from the port is April 10, 2019, that is two clear years so further authorisation was given to enable the clearance to be done so without further authorisation the clearance would have been impossible,” he fumed.
Mr Agalga stressed that when he gave the permit, the security situation in the country was not volatile like now.
“Given terrorism treats, incidents of armed robbery, contract killings, vigilantism and kidnappings in the country, government should have stopped the company from bringing the ammunition to Ghana,” he argued.
Mr Agalga urged the government to place a temporary ban on arms importation until the security challenges in the country are addressed.
Source: adomonline.com
