The Defence and Interior Committee of Parliament has recommended that the agencies that are at the country’s borders should subject nomadic herdsmen to stringent checks before they enter the country.
This recommendation was part of a report that was presented to the House on October 29, 2019.
The committee worked for over two years probing the operations of nomadic herdsmen and was to come out with recommendations on how to help curb the conflicts between herders and farming communities.
The chairman of the committee, Seth Acheampong, read out excerpts of the report.
“The committee recommends that security agencies, specifically police and immigration services, assigned to the borders of the country should ensure thorough checks on the movements and activities of the Fulani herdsmen and their animals,” he said.
“The immigration service should check and register herders who enter through the borders. The officers are to check and ensure that the Fulani herdsmen and their animals are fully documented, and the requisite permits issued,” he added.
Herdsmen call for strict border control
In February 2019, the head of the Herdsmen Community in the Ashanti Region, Alhaji Osman Bin Ahmed called for increased patrols and checks at the country’s borders to control the entry of cattle.
According to him, this would help the government regulate the number of cattle entering the country and track the activities of cattle herders.
Alhaji Bin Ahmed emphasized the need for proper border control to help curb the menace.
“The number of cattle that comes in from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, the government should know and there should be a route so you know where to move the cattle. Along the lines, there are grazing areas, there are boreholes where they can take water and the government can charge and make more money out of it but in Ghana cattle just enter anywhere and nobody knows what happens.”
“At the end of the day, it creates more problems. If cattle are moving from Burkina Faso we have to know the number of cattle and who is bringing them. The route, the destination. It is hard time we start looking at this industry to make sure that the right thing is done.”