Accra, Ghana//-Latest findings from the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) second report on Border Community Monitoring revealed that the current security situation in Ghana’s border communities has been generally calm.
The report which conducted between October 2021 to December 2021 was released on Monday, 31, January 2022 at the time that insecurity in the ECOWAS sub-region is heightened, following coup D’états in Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Main Findings
According to the report’s assessment by the trained community volunteers who monitored the selected border communities, the current security in about eight to 10 (76%) of the communities observed was generally good.
However 41 (11%) of the communities monitored in Bono, Oti, Upper East, Western North, Savannah, Northern, Volta, Western and Upper West regions, the volunteers rated the current security as ‘poor or very poor’.
Presenting the findings of the report at a media briefing in Accra, the Programs Manager of CDD-Ghana, Paul Nana Kwabena Aborampah Mensah to journalists that 68% of the communities that his team of volunteers monitored, rated their security awareness level as ‘excellent’, ‘very good’, ‘good’ compared to 48% in the first report.
However, he added that the current monitoring round covered more communities than the previous one. Also, 65 out of the 369 (18%) communities monitored, rated the awareness of border residents on security as ‘fair’, showing an improvement in security awareness from 28% in the first report.
In comparison, 53 (14%) of the communities monitored were rated as ‘very poor’ or poor’.
Furthermore, the volunteers also reported that about nine out of 10 (91%) of the communities monitored, there were no visible threats of terrorism or violent extremist activities.
However, in about nine per cent of the communities in the Bono, Oti, Upper East, Western North, Northern, Volta, Western and North East regions, the volunteers reported either observing or hearing about suspected criminal activities and cases of illegal cross-border activities, including smuggling of goods.
While some of the reported cases according to the report were: -Officers of Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) at Kulungu in the Upper East Region arrested a foreign national with a seized gun, some quantity of bullets and a cutlass. The suspect was handed over for further investigation, it added.
-Five men were arrested at Tanosuano in the Volta Region for concealing four guns and 200 D8 cartridges in a bag of charcoal, the report said.
-Also, at Hwemehaa in the Western North Region, the volunteers reported that illegal migrants (Ivorians) are using unapproved routes into the community for trading and smuggling of agricultural inputs and cocoa beans from the community to neighbouring Ivory Coast.
Improving trust and confidence between community and security services
According to reports from the volunteers which were captured into the second report, the relationship between residents living in border communities monitored and the security officers at the borders during this reporting period was generally ‘good’ or ‘very good’.
Specifically, most (69%) of the volunteers have rated the relationship between residents and that of the border security officers as ‘very good’ or ‘good’.
Furthermore, the volunteers also indicated that 88% of the communities did not have any form of disputes between members of the border communities and the security officers.
In the few instances where these were disputes between the two groups, disagreement over fines, arrests and enforcement of prevention orders at the border crossing were the main reasons. These issues mainly occurred in border crossings in the Upper East, Western North, Volta and Oti regions.
Human rights abuses
According to a few incidents reported by the volunteers, human rights abuses in border communities remain very low. They indicated that close to nine out of 10 (88%) communities monitored recorded no such incidents.
“However, about one in 10 (10%) of the communities monitored documented abuses such as child trafficking and child labour. For instance, there were reports from Hwemehaa, a community in the Western North Region, that children are being trafficked to neighbouring Ivory Coast.
Furthermore, at Bandaya in the Western North Region, the volunteers reported that some migrant children were seen working permanently as labourers on cocoa farmers”, the stated.
Radio and community sensitization forums
During the reporting period, nearly all volunteers (98%) successfully facilitated and organised community forums across the various assigned border communities. Reports from the volunteers indicated that about six in 10 (62%) of the community forums organised, security officers collaborated with our volunteers to educate residents in several border communities across the country.
However, in about 38% of the communities, the security agencies could not honour the invitation to sensitise community members at the forums, the report noted.
Some of the reasons given by the security officers for their inability to honour the invitations were summarised as:
-The invitations were not received on time, thereby limiting the time the security officers needed to prepare for the community forums.
-In some cases, the security officers were engaged in other duties making it challenging to participate in the forums.
In all, the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) ranked highest (40%) among the institutions whose officers served as resource persons during the forums. They were followed the GIS with 22% representation in all the education related activities and the Ghana Police Service came third with 14%.
An estimated 22,014 people were reached directly, with an average of 80 people per community forum during the reporting period.
ALSO READ: What Can Be Done To Stop Military Coups In West Africa – African Eye Report
Objective of the report
A Senior Programs Officer of CDD-Ghana, Mawusi Yaw Dumenu who took the journalists through the aspects of the report, said the objective is to enhance the security awareness of citizens along and across border communities as a proactive step in contributing to strengthening Ghana’s border security in the face of surging border crimes and external security threats, particularly violent extremism and terrorism in West Africa.
Conclusion
CDD-Ghana urged all security agencies in border communities to frequently sensitise the residents in their jurisdiction and leverage on public gatherings and other platforms to foster greater collaboration between citizens and security personnel for effective and efficient management of the country’s borders.
The leading NGO also called on religious leaders including pastors and imams to use their platforms-churches and mosques-and their influence within the various communities to educate the citizens on their responsibility to collaborate and to share security information with the security agencies, especially those living in the border communities.
African Eye Report
