The Narcotics Control Commission (NACOC) is currently depending on sniffer dogs at the Kotoka International Airport and other ports across the country to detect narcotic substances being smuggled out, the Minister of the Interior has told Parliament.
Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka told the House that the use of sniffer dogs had become necessary due to broken-down narcotic detection scanners at the airports.
He explained that the dogs were being used in the interim to detect suspected narcotics substances as the government was following procurement processes to procure new detection scanners. "Each time we see substance that looks like drug, we try to get it to laboratories to test for confirmation or otherwise," he said.
Assurance Responding to questions on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, July 9, Mr Muntaka said "So yes, I know that having the scanner, therefore, would have been an excellent one but because of this challenge, and having to go through the procurement process which is delaying, we are currently using sniffer dogs to enhance the tracking and what we call it search for possible drugs at the airports. "I can assure my colleagues that as soon as funds are available, we will make sure that we procure narcotic detection scanners because it is so important not just for only for narcotic cases but for all other cases like people who are smuggling gold and other things that are not supposed to be smuggled," he said.
