Builsa North lawmaker, James Agalga, has said that political will on the part of the government is needed to ensure effective implementation of a well-crafted National Security Strategy that has been introduced to tackle issues that threaten the country’s security.
The Member of the Defense and Interior Committee of Parliament told Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take on 3FM Tuesday June 8 that it is not enough to have well-crafted policy in place to deal with security threats.
Rather, he said, the will to apply the policy without fear or favour.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Monday June 7 commissioned a newly-constructed building for the Ministry of National Security, and launched the National Security Strategy document, the first such document in the history of the country.
Speaking at the ceremony he expressed his satisfaction that the National Security Ministry “has decided to name this new building after one of its most hardworking leaders, the late National Security Co-ordinator, Joshua Kyeremeh, who died so tragically early whilst in office, and was laid to rest a few days ago”.
“The National Security Strategy also aims to establish Ghana as a land of opportunities, with the resolve and the capability to protect her people, her culture and her values, to spur growth, development and prosperity that inure to the well-being of her people, whilst positioning the country to play a meaningful and influential role at regional, continental and global levels,” he added.
Commenting on this strategy, Mr Agalga who was a Deputy Minister for the Interior in the Mahama administration said “The launch of the national security strategy is good for the management of our country’s security because we find ourselves in a very crucial time.
“The hitherto, defensive posture that we adopted in response to the security threats that we were exposed to as a country, clearly, cannot be the approach because there are emerging security threats which require us to adopt a different approach.
“I think that largely, the strategy, what it does is to afford us the opportunity to revise our responses in present times to deal with the security challenges that confront us. So, to that extend I will say the strategy itself is a good thing.
“The minister deserves commendation for ensuring that the strategy was finally launched. I must say that the approach was an all-inclusive one so if we now have a strategy it is not something that somebody sitting somewhere crafted for us.
“We ourselves the Minority group was consulted, the Committee for Defense and Interior was consulted. As the Minister himself put it security capos, former Ministers for National security were all roped in so today of we have a security strategy, I think that it is as a result of cooperation between all the stakeholders in our security sector. Cleary, the document identifies political vigilantism as one of the threats that confronts our country security.
“And so to the extent that the document fully recognizes vigilantism as a threat, it is expected that with the implementation of the strategy we should be able to deal with that canker which has plagued our country’s security for quite some time.
“Having said that, one needs to be clear that the strategy in its self, its launch does not give a solution to that challenges that we have now if we do not fully implement it or take its implementation very seriously.
“First of all it will take political will on the part of government to have this otherwise excellent strategy rolled out and fully implemented.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana