Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), slammed Ghana for treating drug trafficking as a problem only when consignments linked to the country are seized overseas. His remarks came as Parliament’s Minority Group has petitioned the Speaker to convene a recall session and form an inter‑party committee to probe recent seizures that reportedly passed through Ghana.
Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV on Saturday, September 19, 2026, Mr Amoah said the current debate reflected a broader failure to confront Ghana’s drug problem consistently.
“We are a bunch of hypocrites as a country. We all pretend to care about a phenomenon, but we really don’t care,”he said.
He argued that the issue only becomes a major national concern when a drug shipment connected to Ghana is intercepted outside the country.
“It is only when it becomes topical that we all seem to want to dig what was, what is, what could be and all of that,”he added.
Mr Amoah questioned why the current discussion had become prominent only after the reported seizure of a shipment in France, despite what he described as a long‑standing drug problem within Ghana.
“We are all pontificating about drugs because some shipment has been confiscated elsewhere, overseas,”he said.
He said the focus should extend beyond the international seizure to the availability and use of narcotics within Ghana, particularly among young people.
“Thousands of Ghanaian youth, if not millions, are hooked on drugs,”he warned, citing Indian hemp and tramadol as examples of drugs already part of the country’s broader drug problem.
The Minority’s petition to the Speaker seeks to bring the issue to Parliament’s agenda, urging a recall session and the establishment of a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the seizures. The debate has intensified as public and political concern over recent narcotics seizures involving consignments that reportedly passed through Ghana mounts.
What follows is a call for sustained national action rather than reactive measures triggered by foreign interceptions. The next step will be whether Parliament convenes the recall and forms the proposed committee to address Ghana’s drug trafficking crisis head‑on.
