Accra, Nov. 3, GNA - ECOWAS on Tuesday announced that its Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and other related materials was in force and fully operational.

It said nine member-states had already ratified the Convention. General Seth Obeng, Member of the Advisory Board of the ECOWAS Small Arms Control Programme (ECOSAP), made the announcement at the inauguration of the Ghana Chapter of the West Africa Action Network on Small Arms (WAANSA) in Accra.

The Convention seeks to prevent and combat the excessive and destabilising accumulation of small arms and light weapons within ECOWAS; strengthen the efforts for the control of SALW; and to consolidate the gains of the declaration of the moratorium on the importation, exportation and manufacture of small arms and its code of conduct. The nine countries that have ratified the convention are Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Guinea and Liberia. General Obeng said in view of its benefits to the sub-region, it was important that the rest of the member-states quickened action on ratifying it. He said attention was now being focused on Ghana, which had always played a front role in sub-regional initiatives, to speed up action on ratifying the convention.

He commended WAANSA for their collaborative efforts to ensure that proliferation of SALW was curtailed.