Ghana heightens border surveillance

The government of Ghana has set up surveillance equipment at various border posts that will enable security deal with movement of terrorists across its borders, Deputy Minister for the Interior James Agalga has revealed.

“The unit that is responsible for border patrols now has surveillance equipment at 15 out of 17 selected critical border posts and crossings in the country. We now have surveillance equipment,” he said.

Mr Agalga revealed this during a recent symposium in the Upper East Region aimed at giving an account of Ghana’s stewardship.

At the programme, which was organised by the Ministry of Communications on the theme: ‘Government for the People Forum’, Mr Agalga noted: “The idea is that in an era where terrorism is staring us in the face, we need to beef up security and those are some of the measures that have been put in place.”

Several West African countries have been hit by terrorists and the country is making efforts to prevent similar attacks.

Unidentified gunmen on Sunday March 13 killed at 19 people at a beach resort in southern Ivory Coast.

The assailants fired at beach-goers in the town of Grand Bassam, about 40km (25 miles) east of the country's commercial capital, Abidjan.

The Grand Bassam attack followed a similar one in January by the same militant group, on Ghana’s northern neighbour Burkina Faso, in which 28 people of different nationalities were killed at the Splendid Hotel in the national capital Ouagadougou.

The Burkina Faso attack had been preceded by one in Mali, again involving the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in November 2015, in which 21 people were killed at a luxury hotel. All three attacks in the sub-region have happened in francophone countries. That notwithstanding, fears are rife in Ghana that the terrorists could soon strike Ghana, an Anglophone republic.