WORKSHOP ON NUCLEAR SAFETY OPENS (PAGE 31)

A four-day workshop designed for the physical protection of nuclear and radioactive material and facilities opened in Accra yesterday.
Twenty-five participants drawn from nuclear facilities in and around Africa are attending the regional workshop jointly organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.
Currently there are more than 4,000 workplaces such as hospitals, mines, engineering facilities and the agro-processing sectors where radioactive materials are constantly in use in the processes.
The National Security Co-ordinator, Lt. Col. Larry Gbevlo Lartey, who opened the workshop, stressed the need for the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) and the National Security Council to work together to respond in a timely and professional manner to accidents involving exposure of nuclear and radioactive materials in the country.
Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey explained that the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) global efforts at assisting countries to combat sabotage and malicious acts involving nuclear and radioactive materials required that the state and international organisations worked together to make nuclear materials secure and safe.
He reiterated the government’s stand on the acquisition of the requisite knowledge in the development and application of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey, whose speech was read on his behalf by the Deputy National Security Co-ordinator, Mr Edzi Golo Kosivi-Degear, said apart from accidents involving the use of nuclear and radioactive materials, some rogues could engage in acts involving sabotage and theft of nuclear materials with devastating effects on lives and property.
He said the state and the GAEC should be in a position to guard against such acts of sabotage and theft by putting in place measures to detect such acts at workplaces which posed danger to lives.
He said the workshop was, therefore, designed to provide a basic understanding of the physical protection, as well as to demonstrate a systematic methodology to evaluate physical protection systems for nuclear facilities.
Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey said co-ordination among the authorities in charge of nuclear security functions was paramount for the establishment and operation of an effective regulatory control programme.
The National Security Co-ordinator noted that Ghana, which aspired to become a nuclear energy user, had to step up the training of its workforce on the dynamic trends of nuclear energy for the socio-economic development of the country.
Prof. Yaw Serfor Armah, the Deputy Director-General of GAEC, said the number of nuclear security workshops organised this year demonstrated global efforts aimed at combating malicious acts involving nuclear and radioactive materials and the threat posed to lives and property.