Ho, Aug 19, GNA - Government has urged blacksmiths clandestinely moulding guns to come out into the open to be helped to streamline their businesses.

Dr Kwasi Apea-Kubi, Deputy Minister of the Interior said this at a forum organized in Ho on Wednesday by the Ghana National Commission on Small-Arms (GNACSA) for blacksmiths in the Volta Region. He said government would prefer harnessing the ingenuity of the blacksmiths into a recognized and assessable productive units of the economy than have them operating in clusters underground. Dr Apea-Kubi said the opportunities of licensing local gun makers, branding and registering their products could only be explored if they were organized and operated transparently.

"We are here to identify you not to criminalize you. We are here to find solutions and discuss in detail your needs, capability and potential with respect to your industry and also see how best government could be of assistance," the Minister stated. He said the situation now was that most of the guns manufactured locally got into the hands of anti-social elements, especially armed robbers, saying "out of every 10 guns used for armed robbery, eight were locally made".

Dr Apea-Kubi said government, through the GNACSA would want to put structures and mechanisms in place to make the production of small arms locally well organized.

He said until that regime was attained "we will rather encourage you to produce other useful implements as most of you are doing". Dr Apea-Kubi said government was working in collaboration with the UNDP to improve skills of the blacksmiths and also introduce them to micro-finance schemes and markets for their products. The Minister announced that a gun registry was about to be opened in Kumasi and later in the other regions to enable people with guns to list them.

Mr Daniel Andoh, UNDP Programme Manager said an example of the government-UNDP collaboration was the blacksmithing model shop at Alavanyo in the Volta Region, a celebrated cradle of gun moulding, where blacksmiths were sharpening their skills to produce other implements for the markets.

Mr Daniel Fianu-Dezor, Secretary of the Volta Regional Blacksmiths Association said the answer to the proliferation of small-arms in the country was licensing of the producer and the product, as guns made in Ghana were comparable in quality to those imported. He said constant harassment of blacksmiths over the years had made the vocation almost extinct.

Colonel Cyril Necku (rtd), Deputy Volta Regional Minister assured them that government would not persecute them but advised that they cooperate to stop the illegal trade in guns in the country.