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Opinion: Organised crime fight: Ghana’s missing threat picture
September 15, 2026
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Opinion: Organised crime fight: Ghana’s missing threat picture

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Key Points

  • Ghana critically lacks a national organised crime threat assessment, leaving it vulnerable and fighting crime ineffectively.
  • Recent large-scale cocaine interceptions demonstrate sophisticated criminal networks exploiting Ghana's port vulnerabilities, indicating these adversaries have a better understanding of Ghana's weaknesses than the state itself.
  • A national threat assessment is a proven discipline globally, used by bodies like UNODC, Europol, and the UK's National Crime Agency, to provide evidence-based information for resource allocation and policy decisions.
  • Implementing such an assessment in Ghana would involve ranking criminal markets (e.g., galamsey, drug trafficking, cyber fraud), identifying state-embedded actors, and establishing regular revision cycles.
  • This instrument would consolidate fragmented intelligence from various agencies into a unified, evidence-based national priority list, ensuring resources are deployed strategically rather than reactively.

Why This Matters

The absence of a national organised crime threat assessment leaves Ghana's security apparatus fighting blind, allowing sophisticated criminal networks, including those potentially embedded within state structures, to exploit systemic vulnerabilities. This undermines national security, distorts resource allocation, and hinders effective governance, making the country a more attractive hub for international illicit activities.

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