Afua Poma, whose trading operation was revealed in the investigative report, was found with three newly captured sea turtles in her possession at the time of her arrest, underscoring the urgency of the crisis.

The captured turtles were released back into the ocean after evidence was gathered. In a bid for leniency, Poma pleaded with the police, saying, “I am sorry about this action. Please forgive me.  I will not practice this illegal trade again.”

Poma’s arrest marks a significant step in the fight against illegal sea turtle poaching in Ghana, but her alleged partner, Kweku Essien, remains at large. The authorities are continuing their search for Essien, a key player in the illicit trade.

The police have formally charged Afua Poma with illegal possession and trade of protected species under Ghana’s Wildlife Resources Management Act 115, 2023, and she will be arraigned according to the head of the crime unit, ASP Francis Kumi.

Head of Nyanyano’s crime unit, ASP Francis Kumi, also issued a stern warning, reminding the public that the hunting, capture, and trade of sea turtles is strictly prohibited under Ghana’s Wildlife Resources Management Act 1115 (2023), which carries penalties of up to two years in prison or substantial fines for violators.

Gideon Sarpong, whose investigation ignited this crackdown, expressed satisfaction with the swift law enforcement action, stating, “As investigative journalists, our role goes beyond simply telling the story—we strive to spark change. The arrest of Afua Poma following our report is a powerful reminder that shedding light on injustice can lead to real-world action. It’s a victory not just for the sea turtles, but for the entire ocean ecosystem they sustain.”

Read more about the investigation here: The vanishing guardians of Ghana’s oceans: Exposing the sea turtle poaching crisis

Sea turtles are critical to the health of Ghana’s marine ecosystems.

The original investigation was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network.  Report by Gideon Sarpong.

The post Impact: Ghana police arrest sea turtle trader after iWatch Africa investigation appeared first on iWatch Africa.

“Truth is that the rubbish is too much. Sometimes we are not even able to breathe. We can’t do anything about it,” said Hassan, who moved from Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana to Accra over a decade ago.

Working as a scrap dealer in Ghana can sometimes be a rewarding venture despite its associated health risks. As scrap dealer, one can earn a daily average income of over GHC100 (17USD). This figure is quite high by Ghanaian standards where current daily minimum wage is GH¢ 12.53 (2USD).

Hassan, is among the hundreds of young men and women who travel from the northern part of Ghana to the capital city of Accra in search of jobs each year. He now spends his days sifting through e-waste that finds its way to the dump site, smashing old television sets, refrigerators and air conditioners in search of valuable parts to recover copper.

 He sometimes burns insulated cables although he insists – “that is now the job of the younger guys” at the site as he points in their direction.

According to the environmental watchdog organization, the Basel Action Network(BAN), an estimated that 352,474 metric tonnes of electronic waste (an equivalent of 2.5 billion smart phones) is illegally shipped from the EU to developing countries each year. The report noted that African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania were among the countries most targeted by Europe’s e-waste exporters.

The Agbogbloshie dump is as a result of the world’s increasing demand for electronic equipment as consumers continually upgrade their devices and discard older ones. These discarded electronics mainly from Europe and the United States often labeled as second-hand products are delivered in huge containers and end up on the shores of developing countries.

A four-month investigation by Gideon Sarpong based on interviews with dozens of environmental experts, import and export businessmen, government officials and review of environmental reports has revealed that despite the illegality of shipment of  electronic waste from the European Union (EU) to Africa, 64% of the EU’s e-waste end up on the continent each year.

The report shows that several e-waste recycling organisations in the UK have previously been engaged in illegal shipment of e-waste to Africa, where as port officials in Europe generally turn a blind eye to these shipments.

The investigation also shows that the EU’s recent  Guideline on the Transboundary Movement of WEEE led by Germany introduces a “Repairable Loophole” which risks undermining gains of the Basel Convention.

It also revealed that harmful refrigerants found in discarded cooling appliances has the capacity to warm the atmosphere thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide, having already accounted for around 10% of global CO2 emissions. 

EU turns a blind eye to shipment of e-waste to Africa an Impact, impact on climate

Anthony Kemi, a Nigerian based in Florence, Italy is one of the many e-waste exporters based in Europe who collects discarded cooling appliances particularly fridges and ship to parts of Africa.

Despite cargo inspections by port officials in Italy it remains to be seen how this has effectively prevented the export of these discarded electronic appliances.

“I have never had any issue at the Livorno port in shipping discarded fridges to Nigeria,” Anthony disclosed. “As long as I make the requisite payments to the shipping authorities, I am fine.”

E-waste is deemed a hazardous waste by the EU due to toxic parts containing substances such as mercury, lead and flame retardants. The EU’s Waste Shipment Regulation (WSR) forbids the export of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) to non-EU countries; nevertheless, the evidence shows otherwise as 350,000 metric tonnes of e-waste leave the EU to developing countries annually.

Mr. Kofi Agyarko, Director of Renewable Energy and Climate Change at the Energy Commission in Ghana has described actions by the EU as “global hypocrisy.”

“If those things (e-waste) were valuable like gold, diamond that our brothers and sisters are smuggling to Africa, would they close their eyes.”

 “If those things (e-waste) were valuable like gold, diamond that our brothers and sisters are smuggling to Africa, would they close their eyes,” he asked.

Mr. Agyarko also revealed that between 2013 and 2014 when Ghana started confiscating used fridges and air conditioners at its ports, “not less than 1500 kilograms of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were recorded within a year and they all came from Europe.”

“The Europeans see e-waste as a problem because it is a burden on them. So, if you want to engage in the export, they will just close their eyes for you to take them away. After all, if you’re taking out garbage away from my house why should I fight you,” he argued.

Refrigerant gases have the capacity to warm the atmosphere – measured as global warming potential – is thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide, with some being up to 13,850 times more potent.

Industry experts say these harmful refrigerants are still widespread and increasing rapidly due to a global surge in demand for air conditioning, sluggish innovation from industry and inadequate legislation around their disposal.

According to Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that analyses climate solutions roughly 90% of refrigerant emissions occur at equipment’s end of life usually taking place in areas like Agbogbloshie and Kariakoo in Tanzania.

“The industry as a whole has had a huge impact on global warming,” says Clare Perry, senior campaigner at the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a non-profit that investigates and campaigns against environmental abuse.

She says taken together refrigerant emissions have accounted for close to 11% of total warming emissions to date.

Shipment of e-waste to Africa by Recycling plants in the UK

Meanwhile, while Anthony collects his discarded cooling appliances from private households and ships to parts of Africa on a small scale, there is a bigger industrial practice in Europe where corporations and recycling organisations collect e-waste from user-friendly collection centers under the guise of recycling but ship these to Africa.

Environcom, UK’s largest waste collector has been previously accused by the Ghanaian government of shipping discarded fridges to Ghana after Ghana had instituted a ban on all e-waste into the country.

Several other UK government approved e-waste recycling organisations including; Bury St Edmunds Household Waste Recycling Site, Ipswich Household Waste Recy-cling Centre, Dawsholm Recycling Centre and Renfrewshire Recycling Centre have all been previously exposed for engaging in the illegal shipment of e-waste to several developing countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania.

According to an investigation by BAN, these drop-off locations that are designed to aid consumers find a proper WEEE recycler were rather found to be shipping e-waste to several African countries. This was revealed with the aid of GPS trackers hidden in e-waste items presented for recycling.

“They go round to collect money to destroy or recycle these appliances but rather and re-package and send them to Ghana for money,” said Mr. Agyarko, Director of Renewable Energy at Ghana’s Energy Commission.

“Most of the cooling appliances that are to be disposed of are laden with CFCs and these organisations find it appropriate to dump them on the shores of Ghana and Africa. So that we will suffer from the environmental problems from the CFCs and die,” he added.

A 2016 study focused on the impact of e-waste on scrap dealers and residents at Agbogbloshie found a significant increase blood lead levels among both e-waste and non-e-waste workers at the site.

The report also called for an “increase in public awareness about the effects of exposure to lead from e-waste recycling.”

Meanwhile, Chris Smith, the National Intelligence Manager at UK’s Environment Agency has admitted that, the BAN investigation enabled the Agency to “quickly and efficiently close down four illegal waste operators who exported the electrical waste.”

The United Kingdom was found to be the most egregious violator of illegal shipments of hazardous consumer electronic scrap to vulnerable populations like Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania according to the report.

Other countries that also allowed such e-waste exports to developing countries include: Germany, Italy, Ireland, Poland, and Spain.

Jim Puckett, Executive Director of BAN, said the illegal shipments perpetuated an EU waste management regime “on the backs of the poor and vulnerable”.

“Weaker economies and communities are being exploited by richer one’s who are now intent on pressing for cradle to cradle and waste is food while turning a blind-eye to the fact that ‘recycling’ and ‘re-use’ and now “circular economy” are increasingly being mis-appropriated as green passwords to a global waste circus and horror show,” he explained.

“This flies in the face of EU claims to make continuous efforts to implement a circular economy which can only responsibly exist by eliminating … leakage from the system,” said Mr. Puckett.

Europe Undermines the Basel Convention 

In 1995, the Basel BAN Amendment was introduced by the Basel Convention Parties to prohibit the member states of the OECD, the EU and Liechtenstein from exporting hazardous waste to other countries.

Despite Europe’s previous success in placing the Ban Amendment into binding legislation even before its entry into international legal force, many experts believe that the introduction of a “Repairable Loophole” in 2019 risks undermining the Basel Convention.

The loophole contained in the Guideline on the Transboundary Movement of WEEE allows anyone to simply claim used electronic waste as ‘repairable’ and export it completely outside of the rules and obligations of the Basel Convention.

“No importing country would even be asked if it would like to receive container loads of broken e-waste destined for ‘repair’” says Jim Puckett.

The Guideline will guide unscrupulous traders to export all manner of hazardous broken or untested consumer electronics outside of the control procedures of the Basel Convention.

In a May, 2019 statement by Jim Puckett, he argued that “the Guideline will guide unscrupulous traders to export all manner of hazardous broken or untested consumer electronics outside of the control procedures of the Basel Convention simply by making a claim of “export for repair.”

“One can but fear that these efforts led by Germany, are a harbinger of Europe renouncing its leadership role in human rights and the environment.”

Germany’s Basel Convention representative at the Federal Environment Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ghana effort to deal with e-waste

So far in Ghana, lawmakers have introduced the Electronic Waste Control and Management law which aims to prevent Ghana from being used as a dumping ground for e-waste.

Ghana is by far one of the countries in the world most targeted and impacted by EU and US e-waste exporters.

The law introduced in 2016 has successfully reduced the importation of used cooling appliances to a minimum of 2 percent according to an Energy Commission survey. This was also confirmed by the Executive Secretary of the Importers and Exporters Association of Ghana, Samson Asaki Awingobit who also admitted that, the ban on used cooling appliances have significantly affected the livelihoods of importers.

“People who were into importation of second-hand fridges have all lost their jobs,” he disclosed.

Although the influx of used cooling appliances has significantly reduced across Ghana’s borders, the situation is still “not satisfactory,” according to the Energy Commission.

“Before we began the war, the used appliances market controlled over 80 percent market share. Until we hit zero, I will not say we have won but with 98 percent success, I will say we have made an enviable progress,” says Mr. Agyarko.

Ghana’s e-waste law also created a tax scheme named eco-levy imposed on electric and electronic equipment (EEE) coming into the country. The eco-levy is mainly to support the construction of e-waste recycling plants across the country.

In August 2018, President Akufo-Addo announced the commencement of the construction of a recycling e-waste management facility at Agbogbloshie with funds generated from the eco levy.

Checks at Agbogbloshie as at July, 2021, three years later indicate that work has not commenced.

Member of Parliament for the area, Nii Lante Vanderpuye expressed his disappointment that nothing has been done so far.

“Well, it is sad that this is the case. It was a project that was started with the NDC government, the John Mahama administration in 2016. Down the line five years now, nothing much has been done. I have rather seen the site being used as a dumping place for the Accra landing beach project. They virtually cutting the debris and dump it there,” the MP said.

Agbogbloshie E-Waste Site Demolished, and Way Forward

One month following my interview with Hassan Tampani in July 2021, the government forcefully evicted the over 4000 scrap dealers from the scrap yard at Agbobloshie.

Hassan, lost all his property during the eviction due to what he claims to be a “very short government notice of eviction.” With no support and compensation from the state and an alternative source of livelihood, his only option is to rebuild his scrap business at a new site.

 “The minister didn’t inform us that we were part of the eviction. We didn’t know about the eviction until about two days to the removal. He has not paid us anything. The minister is a very wicked man…,”said Hassan.

He added: “the scrap dealers have now contributed to buy a new land at Teacher Mante in the Eastern Region of Ghana.”

Hassan now hopes that a 50-acre land at Teacher Mante obtained at a cost of GHS 1 million cedis ($166,000) will soon be developed so he can restart his scrap business.

There is however a growing concern among some Ghanaians that the open burning of residual unrepairable fractions which led to significant pollution of water bodies and the environment at Agbogbloshie will be repeated at the new site.

Henry Kokofu, the Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency has however insisted that plans are in place to prevent the new site designated for the Scrap Dealers Association from being polluted by e-waste.

For Mr. Agyarko, the solution is a straightforward one and warns of dire consequences if no action is taken. The EU and particularly Britain must do more to, “prevent the export of e-waste into developing countries. The earlier they turn on a new leaf the better for us all.” Otherwise, “this whole talk about Paris agreement- agenda 1.5-degree Celsius temperature reduction becomes a fleeting slogan,” he said.

There are no boundaries in the atmosphere. The pollution doesn’t require visa nor resident permit.

“There are no boundaries in the atmosphere. The pollution doesn’t require visa nor resident permit. So, if you think that you can clean one part of the planet and pollute the other part of the planet and you think that you are living in a clean environment, that is a hoax.”

———————————————

Reporting and writing by Gideon Sarpong. Daniel Abugre Anyorigya (Ghana) and Leslie Olonyi (Kenya) contributed to the report.

This article was developed with the support of the Money Trail Project (www.money-trail.org).

The post Garbage Out, Garbage In: How Europe’s e-waste problem is a burden on Africa appeared first on iWatch Africa.

This year marks the seventh year since the Islamist group Boko Haram’s violent attacks began to spill over Nigeria’s north-eastern frontier in 2014.

According to data from the UNHCR , over 3.2 million people are displaced, including over 2.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-eastern Nigeria, and over 684,000 IDPs in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Life has become difficult for Stephen who is currently residing with his four children in one of the IDPs camp in Maiduguri.

“I have never bothered to go back to my house since the attack”, Stephen said, adding that the attack has left him, “living in abject poverty.”

A three-month investigation by Gideon Sarpong and Elfredah Kevin-Alerechi based on interviews with dozens of security experts, gunsmiths, government officials and review of police records has revealed a clandestine network of gunsmiths, criminal networks and arms traffickers who exploit the porous borders across the West Africa and Sahel region to traffic illicit SALWs, which continues to fuel conflicts across the region. The investigation also showed that unrest in places like northern Nigeria, Côte D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Mali has increased the demand for SALWs and significantly weakened the ability of their central governments to control their respective territories and the borders heightening insecurity in the subregion.

Illicit SALW production in West Africa

The proliferation of illicit SALWs has played an important role in the operations of non-state armed groups fueling their attacks in West Africa, particularly northern Nigeria and the Sahel region.

Abdullah Aziz is a 70-year-old gunsmith based in Bimbilla, the capital town of Nanumba North District in Ghana. Although, he acknowledges that manufacture of SALW is prohibited under Ghana’s laws and could face prosecution if he is arrested, it doesn’t deter him from engaging in the trade.

“I got the training from my father, and I have passed it on to my son. We recognize that the production of these guns is illegal but it is all I have known my entire life. We would like the government to regularize it and give us the necessary support,” he said.

Abdullah also claims that he doesn’t sell his craft weapons to “criminals and smugglers,” but there is no way he can control where his guns end up and what they might be used for.

The situation is not entirely different in Nigeria. Ibrahim Abdulahim, a blacksmith in Kano state, in northern Nigeria, has been a manufacturer of craft weapons for close to two decades. But until recently when he was mandated by law to regularize his operations, he admitted that he was “producing local weapons for everybody.”

With craft weapons selling between US$90 to US$150 in West Africa (depending on the type of firearm and level of technicality), the likes of Abdullah and Ibrahim can boast of a relatively comfortable standard of living. They are among thousands of gunsmiths and traffickers dotted across Ghana and the sub-region cashing in on this illicit activity.

A 2020 report by the BBC estimated that gunsmiths in Ghana produced up to 200,000 guns a year. Considering that Ghana has not experienced any major conflict or violence that requires the use of arms on such a large scale, some experts have suggested that these craft weapons end up fueling conflicts in neighboring countries.

“We know that for as long as the blacksmiths exist and continue to perfect their trade in the various weapons and the ammunitions that they manufacture, there is certainty that some of these arms are involved in the conflicts in the sub-region, said Yaro Kasambata, coordinator at the Centre for Peace and Security Research of the University of Professional Studies Accra.

Yaro however explained that, “to be able to point to or quantify them [craft-produced weapons] in their number or estimate is impossible because the trade currently is highly secret, it is illegal and even the state is unable to tell how many guns are manufactured.”

Meanwhile in Nigeria, a succession of state-level arms collection programmes beginning in 2016 has so far retrieved over 7000 weapons in Nigeria’s northern and central states, with craft-produced weapons being the majority according to a 2020 report by Conflict Armament Research.

While most improvised and craft-produced firearms are likely to be employed in the country in which they are manufactured, evidence points to an increase in the number of organized international transfers.

The report also showed that weapons that were documented during field operations in the three northern Nigerian states have commonalities with small arms previously in service with national defence forces in Cote d’Ivoire and with weapons that Conflict Armament Research has documented in Libya.

Retired senior army officer Colonel Chinedu Owhonda, has blamed the porous nature of borders within the west African region, particularly for the burgeoning illicit trafficking of arms.

“The Nigeria borders are so porous that the security agencies are not covering all the borders. There are over 2,000 entry points from the north to south of the country these terrorists use to bring arms into the country. And, all these borders cannot be manned by our security agencies we don’t have enough security officers to man these porous borders,” the retired Colonel disclosed.

Traffickers and trafficking routes

Several years of political instability and unrest in places like Libya, DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Chad and other parts of the region and the resultant economic pressures and lack of security have, all “aided the proliferation and trafficking” of small arms in the region says Colonel Owhonda.

In April 2015, customs officials in Pô seized a vehicle which entered Burkina Faso from Ghana with a load of 250 kg of explosives, 200 pyrotechnic detonators, 350 metres of detonating cord, and five 50-litre jerry cans of cyanide.

According to the Small Arms Survey report, several incidents involving explosives smuggling have occurred in Pô and Zabré, pushing the authorities of Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo to launch a joint operation in 2018. The operation resulted in the dismantling of a smuggling ring suspected of affiliation to terrorism that operated along the border area shared by the three countries in the twin cities of Cinkansé (Burkina Faso) and Cikassé (Togo). The Ghana Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also, in June 2019, Nigeria’s Police Intelligence Response Unit arrested a notorious arms-smuggler, Ojomo Adebowale Gbenga alongside three members of his syndicate during an operation in the North-Western part of Nigeria.

Ojomo Adebowale Gbenga, who admitted to being a “gunrunner” for the last 15 years revealed that he worked closely with agents in Ghana and Burkina Faso who helped to facilitate the so-called ‘ants trafficking’ of cargo into Nigeria.

“I have contacts in Burkina Faso and Ghana… They conceal it [firearms] in a vehicle, under the floor of the vehicle. Perfectly concealed and sometimes they use hides and skins which they have it more in Burkina Faso and the Sahara areas,” he told the police.

Although the matter is still in court, a statement from Police PRO DCP Frank Mba, indicates that the syndicate, “specializes in smuggling SALWs and ammunition” from the Sahel region and in West Africa.

Their activities “overlap” with that of other criminal networks, “ranging from kidnapping, armed robbery, banditry and cattle rustling,” the statement confirmed.

These reports also confirm trafficking routes published by the European Council on Foreign Relations focused on West Africa and the Sahel region.

Regional Impact:

All of these pose a significant threat to the stability of nations across the sub-region. Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone have ranked domestic craft production as the most significant source of illicit arms in their countries (for Côte d’Ivoire, craft production ranked first together with cross-border flows by land), while Guinea reported illicit cross-border transfers of craft weapons by land to be its main concern.

Eric G. Berman, Director of Small Arms Survey says that while, “conventional weapons originate mainly from outside the continent unlicensed craft production, are exclusively continental.”

“Each of these flows of illicit small arms comes with its own set of actors, and presents unique operational challenges to anyone who attempts to control it,” he said.

“There is no quick fix to the problems of illicit arms flows and armed violence in Africa. The challenges that need to be addressed are multiple and particularly complex.”

So far, the African Union effort to combat weapons trafficking, particularly tackle the vast number of illicit SALWs on the continent as part of the Master Roadmap of Practical Steps to Silence the Guns in Africa by Year 2020 has failed to achieve its targets.

Several African states engaged in the manufacture of SALWs and ammunition have failed to sign or ratify the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

“The ATT will encourage member states to ensure that all guns coming into one’s country and leaving the country bear a unique identification number which helps in the tracking of the sale of arms,” said Yaro Kasambata.

“It is the only way we can trace where the source of a gun comes from and then use it to serve as a basis of monitoring both at the local level and at the sub-regional level, but the political will to speed up the process leading to efficient laws are not forthcoming,” he added.

Way Forward

All of these revelations raise important questions about what officials in the region are doing at the local level to address the proliferation of SALWs.

A government official at the SALW Commission in Ghana, who was not authorized to speak publicly admitted that the government has, “very little intelligence about the operations of the gunsmiths and arms traffickers dotted all over the country.”

“We tried to get closer to them and organize them into associations in our effort to deal with the illicit production and trade of SALWs but we have seen very little success due to the underground nature of their activity,” he disclosed.

Mr. Insiah, a secretary of the Blacksmiths Association in the Ashanti region of Ghana is of the view that, “government support to registered blacksmith associations could empower them to track and report” colleagues engaged in the illicit production.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, a top security official who spoke on condition of anonymity has accused some security officers of “conniving with weapons smugglers” to bring illegal weapons into the country through the sea and also unapproved borders routes.

“Our people leading the border are not serious, they are not qualified. They are only fixed by people who have interest in the juicing things [profiting] that come out from illegal dealings,” the source said.

Retired colonel Chinedu Owhonda has however urged the Nigerian government to equip the security personnel with the right gear and weapons, as well pay allowances on time and constantly rotate officers working at the border in the effort to curb illicit trafficking of arms.

For Yaro Kasambata, the proliferation of SALWs has been a major problem because of, “largely state failure to deal with the problem and the complete absence of laws recognizing the licensing regime.”

The solution, he argued lies with the “establishment of a regulatory framework that would recognize the existence of the problem, regulate, monitor, inspect and license the whole production of small arms and light weapons.”

Reporting and writing by Gideon Sarpong (Ghana) and Elfreda Kevin-Alerechi (Nigeria).

This article was developed with the support of the Money Trail Project (www.money-trail.org).

The post How the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons (SALWs) is fueling conflicts in West Africa appeared first on iWatch Africa.

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Report by iWatch Africa

The post TAC Project: Perception of corruption change in Ghana [Infographic] appeared first on iWatch Africa.