The Majority in Parliament has charged the Ministry of Interior to as a matter of urgency institute measures to retrieve unlicensed weapons from individuals in the country.

The call comes at a time when the country is witnessing a surge in gun violence which has resulted in the death of at least two police men in the last two months.

Making the call at a press conference Monday, August 21, 2017 the Deputy Chairman of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee Collins Owusu Amankwah said, the availability of unlicensed weapon is “becoming like a canker in our society. People fancy holding handguns, rifles with impunity…and that the times is now to fight it.”

According to the former Minister of Interior, Prosper Douglas Bani, in 2016 there were about 1.1 million unlicensed weapons in the possession of civilians in the country.

Out of the 2.3 million weapons circulating in the country, only 1.2 million have been captured on the police database, he added.