The erudite Journalist on cash-in-transit heist Anneliese Burgess describes the phenomenon of cash-in-transit heist in the following apocalyptic summary;
“The nature of criminal conduct is scary – they are using explosives. It is groups of people firing high-calibre firearms.”
The rise of armed robbery attacks on cash in transit vehicles in Ghana keeps rising at a fast pace. This menace has seen loss of life of very well-trained security personnel and pedestrians.
In South Africa, the menace of cash-in-transit heist has metamorphosed into a very lucrative business venture with a total of 376 incidents of cash-in-transit heist recorded by the South African Banking Risk Information Center in 2017.
In Ghana the lack of Banking Risk Information Center makes it murkier to gather data of cash-in-transit data for intellectual analyses.
Indeed, the brazen use of ordinary Toyota pick-ups with an ordinary roadside padlock to secure huge sums of money on the roads casts a dark spell on Ghana’s security apparatus.
The rising cash-in-transit heist menace like any other security challenge must be tackled immediately before it becomes more lucrative to criminals.
Considering the examined cases of cash in transit heist cases for the year 2019 to mid 2021 it can be said that the six main causes of cash-in-transit heist can be attributed to the following:
• Lack of a special police unit to escort cash-in-transit
• Lack of specialised bullion vehicles to be used to transit cash
• Lack of regulatory authority to certify bullion vehicles for use
• Lack of skilled security drivers to drive bullion vehicles
• Lack of government’s intervention in creating a cashless free environment by scraping electronic transfer charges within Ghana
• Lastly, lack of Banking Risk Information Center to gather information and assess cash-in-transit vehicles heist and other related crimes.
Considering the risk associated with the business of escorting cash, it is expected that the Ghana police service establishes a special purpose unit for cash-in-transit duties.
The overreliance off the police SWAT in cash-in-transit duties is simply ridiculous because the SWAT unit duties does not fall within the specialised framework to transporting cashon daily basis.It is therefore prudent that the Ghana police service establishes a specialised unit for cash-in-transit to help curb the menace.
The lack of bullion vehicles for cash-in-transit duties makes drivers and security personnel very vulnerable to attacks. The usual use of Toyota pickup cabins secured with cheap padlocks makes the business of cash-in-transit heist an enterprising venture in Ghana. The time is nigh for the ministry for the interior to establish a regulatory body to approve standard bulletproof cash-in-transit vehicles for transiting of cash.
Lastly, the high cost of charges on electronic transactions even within Ghana’s financial environment is heart breaking. This has led to a cash economy instead of cashless. The financial industry players have to crap the electronic high cost of charges on electronic transactions to make the financial environment a cashless one.
In conclusion, Ghana’s security relative to cash-in-transit heist will always continue to see a rise in should the relevant stakeholder fail to resolve the six challenges canvassed above.
