FOOD AND DRUGS BOARD STAFF TESTIFIES IN COKE TRIAL

THE Ghana Standards Board (GSB) is the only establishment given permit by the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) to import cocaine for scientific and medical purposes.
A prosecution witness, Mrs Afua Owusua Amartey, the Head of the Tobacco and Substances Abuse Unit of the FDB, has told the Accra Fast Track High Court hearing the case involving three policemen who allegedly aided a suspect to abscond with 2,280 kilogrammes of cocaine into the country.
However, she said the board allowed some pharmaceutical companies to also import narcotic and psychotropic substances.
She said the national quota of cocaine allocation to Ghana was 10 grammes, out of which the GSB was allocated 0.430 grammes for 2005 and 0.920 grammes for 2006.
Mrs Amartey was testifying in the case in which General Lance Corporal Dwamena Yabson, General Sergeant Daniel Nyarko, General Lance Corporal Peter Bondori and Detective Sergeant Amoah, who is on the run, are accused of collecting money from the owner of the cocaine, Sheriff Asem Dakeh, and allowing him (Dakeh) to abscond with the narcotic drug.
The three have been charged with two counts of engaging in prohibited business relating to narcotic drugs and corruption by a public officer.
They have pleaded not guilty to both counts.
Mrs Amartey said before anyone or an organisation would be allowed to import narcotic and psychotropic substances, it had to apply to the FDB and if approved, it would be given an allocation within the national quota.
She said two weeks after the substances had arrived in the country, the importer was mandated to submit an advice form to indicate that the substances had arrived to enable the FDB to write back to the exporting agency.
She stated that she did not know the accused persons, neither did they apply to the FDB for a permit to import narcotic substances.
Hearing was adjourned to April 17, 2007.