WEST AFRICA BECOMING 'THE COKE COAST'

Europe's Drugs Smuggled Through Ghana

Hopes of future oil prosperity have given a lift to Ghana's
presidential election race, but drug trafficking threatens to spoil
the west African country's image with the stain of corruption.

During the heated election contest, to be decided in a Dec. 28
run-off, lurid headlines in the partisan press accused both main rival
parties of collusion in trafficking or of using drug dollars to win
votes.

Hard evidence was lacking, but the allegations are indicative of
Ghana's failure to tackle an illicit trade experts fear is turning
west Africa into a "Coke Coast" and of corruption that threatens to
cloud a bright future.

After years of military rule and economic instability, Ghana has been
seen as a success story since President John Kufor was elected in
2000, attracting foreign donors and investors eager for a safe haven
in a restive region.

Yet tonnes of cocaine vanishing from police surveillance, a
parliamentarian jailed in the United States for trafficking heroin,
and the sabotage of efforts to combat smuggling or graft are more
reminiscent of the region's failed or failing states.

"I think it's an extremely serious threat," said Patrick Smith, editor
of newsletter Africa Confidential.

"It's not just the transhipment, it's the criminalization of the
economy and of institutions. There is growing hard drug use among
Ghanaians. They are all mutually reinforcing factors, and yet the
government has not come down hard on them," Smith said.

Yao Gede, a lecturer in international relations at the University of
Ghana, said the record of Kufuor's administration in attracting
investment and extending health and education services was undermined
by widespread suspicions of graft.

"There is that perception of corruption in the country, there is the
belief that resources have not been shared equitably," he said.

"We hear of ... people being approached with huge cash offers to sell
their houses to Colombians and Venezuelans, and it's clearly (money)
laundering," said Smith.

In recent years, cocaine trafficking has been spread across west
Africa by rich, well-armed Latin American gangs who have used the
impoverished region as a transhipment route to smuggle drugs into Europe.