The National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons will from Tuesday, October 1, start assigning unique codes to all firearms in the country. This is to enable easy identification, traceability and accountability.
The exercise dubbed “National Weapons Marking” is to ensure that all guns belonging to the security agencies as well as civilians are marked with unique codes and other features with information on the owners captured into a data base.
The weapons coding exercise is in line with Article 18 of the ECOWAS Convention on small Arms and Light Weapons, which mandates countries in the sub-region to mark their weapons to enable identification and traceability.
The Information Technology Manager and National Weapons Marking Coordinator at the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Frank Boateng Asomani, said the marking by the Commission is different from the serial numbers and other information already imprinted on guns.
Every weapon has a unique serial number and other markings which will help identify the manufacturer, the country of origin among other information.
