By Boakye Stephen, Kumasi, Ghana | Reporting for Ghanaian News, Canada | June 25, 2026
The Interior Ministry has begun a process aimed at stripping private security guards of firearms obtained through personal permits, following concerns that some companies are using an old legal gap to place guns in the hands of personnel who are not lawfully authorised to carry them in the line of private security work.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express, Interior Minister Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak said the ministry has discovered a pattern in which private security operators first obtain licences for their companies and then separately acquire firearms in their own personal names or through employees, only for those weapons to be deployed during company operations.
“Another thing that we also notice is that the private security companies come and we license them here,” the Asawase MP said.
The minister explained that the legal framework governing private security and firearm possession is old and does not actually authorise private security firms to hold firearms. He pointed specifically to the Police Act of 1970 and the 1992 regulations (LI 1571), saying they do not create any legal right for private security companies to operate with guns.
“The laws, interestingly, are very old laws, because the Police Act of 1970, and then the regulations, the 1992 regulations, the 1571 states it. So there had never been any time that private security companies were allowed to hold firearms,” he said.
According to Muntaka, the abuse works in stages. Company owners obtain the firm’s licence after going through background checks and office inspections. After that, the individuals behind the company separately apply for firearms as private persons, often citing reasons such as self-protection, the nature of their work or protection of farms.
“You and I come together to set up the company, so we come, we are given the licence, they do all the backgrounds, they check our office, they do all that, and they give us the licence,” he said.
“Then we come as individuals, so I’ll come as Muntaka and get a pump action for my self-protection. You come as Evans and get a sidearm for your self-protection.”
He added that the same practice is extended to staff members of the firms, who are encouraged to secure personal permits and then use those weapons while working for the company.
“We get other credible employees to go and get either pump action or single-barreled guns or side arms individually for their protection,” he explained.
The effect, he said, is that private security guards end up operating with firearms in a manner that creates the appearance that the company itself is legally entitled to deploy guns.
“When we give all those, and then when we give them, because they are working in the company now, they are using it in the company as though that private security company has the mandate to use a firearm,” he said.
When host Evans Mensah suggested that firms had effectively identified and exploited a loophole in the law, the minister agreed plainly.
“Yes,” he said.
Muntaka noted that this arrangement becomes difficult to police because the individuals carrying the weapons often possess valid licences in their own names, allowing them to satisfy law enforcement checks even though the guns are being used for private security operations.
Still, he insisted the legal position is clear: private security companies have no mandate to carry or deploy firearms.
“No private security company is authorised to use a sidearm or use a firearm,” he said.
“We can grant you tasers, maybe pepper spray and other equipment, but not a firearm. It’s only the police that are mandated to carry firearms.”
He said the ministry is now identifying all individuals who fall within this category and is taking steps to correct the situation.
“So now we are doing all this pause to be able to now identify all such individuals and correct it,” he said.
Commentary | Boakye Stephen
This is a major security-policy story because it exposes a troubling gap between what the law formally permits and what has become normal practice on the ground. If the minister’s account is accurate, private security firms have effectively built an informal armed structure through personal licences, sidestepping the law without technically forging documents. The crackdown could have significant consequences for the private security industry, especially for companies that market armed protection services despite lacking lawful authority to deploy firearms.
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NACOC Warns Students Are Now Emerging as Key Drug Sellers on Ghanaian Campuses
The Narcotics Control Commission says drug activity within Ghana’s tertiary institutions is no longer driven only by outsiders, with recent findings and arrests suggesting that students themselves are increasingly becoming vendors and distributors on campuses.
By Boakye Stephen, Kumasi, Ghana | Reporting for Ghanaian News, Canada
The Deputy Director of the Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC), Alexander Twum-Barima, has raised alarm over what he describes as a growing drug trade inside tertiary institutions and training colleges, warning that students are increasingly becoming active players in the sale of narcotic substances on campuses.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, June 25, Mr Twum-Barima said the worrying trend was highlighted in a nationwide survey conducted by the Ministry of Youth Development and Empowerment, which examined patterns of drug use and distribution within educational institutions.
According to him, the findings point to a serious rise in the presence of drugs across universities, nursing training colleges, teacher training colleges and similar institutions.
“I remember we met my brother, Opare-Addo (Minister of Youth Development and Empowerment), and he was giving us a research or a survey that they had conducted. I can say without fear that the presence of drugs in our tertiary institutions, what I mean by tertiary, is the likes of the Nursing Training Schools, Teacher Training Schools, the Universities, among others, is getting so high,” he said.
He explained that one of the most disturbing aspects of the emerging picture is that students are not merely passive consumers or victims of outside dealers. In some cases, they are allegedly becoming the very people supplying the substances within the schools.
“One would have thought that it is outsiders who are bringing it in, but from what we have just arrested some few days ago, the Central University students, it is clear that the students are becoming the vendors or the ones who are leading the sales of these things in the schools.”
The NACOC official said the trend suggests a dangerous normalisation of drug-related activity within academic environments, raising red flags not only for public health but also for school discipline, student welfare and the integrity of tertiary learning spaces.
His comments come amid broader concern about drug abuse among young people, with attention increasingly shifting from simple possession and consumption to the more organised question of supply networks operating inside schools.
Twum-Barima called for a coordinated response involving state institutions, school authorities and community stakeholders, arguing that the challenge cannot be solved by enforcement alone. He also emphasised the need to expand rehabilitation and recovery programmes so that affected students are not treated solely as offenders, but also as young people in need of intervention and reintegration.
Commentary | Boakye Stephen
This warning from NACOC is serious because it suggests campus drug problems may be moving from sporadic abuse to internalised distribution networks run by students themselves. Once the seller and the buyer are within the same school environment, the problem becomes harder to detect, harder to disrupt and more likely to spread socially. The policy challenge now is twofold: law enforcement must confront the trafficking side, but educational authorities also need prevention, counselling and rehabilitation systems strong enough to stop campuses from becoming self-sustaining drug markets.
