ADF STAFF
A new surveillance system will give Ghana the most complete picture ever of its maritime domain.
The maritime domain monitoring system includes over-the-horizon radars that will let the Ghana Navy see beyond the 370 kilometers of the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Describing it as a “game changer,” Ghana’s Chief of Naval Staff Rear Adm. Issah Adam Yakubu announced the project during a February 2024 conference at the Naval Headquarters, Burma Camp. In an interview with ADF during the African Maritime Forces Summit in Accra, Yakubu said the system marks a major upgrade that lets the navy track bad actors who try to conceal their location.
“Currently the systems we use are web based — mostly AIS [automated identification system]. AIS, the bad guys will not transmit. They go dark, and our radar capabilities do not go up to the end of our exclusive economic zone,” he said.
Yakubu said the new system was preferable to one that relies on satellites. “We have two choices, satellite or over-the-horizon radar,” he said. “Satellite, because of the maintenance costs, because of the subscriptions, we went for the over-the-horizon radars, which will be able to take us up to the edge of our exclusive economy zone.”
Ghana must monitor 225,000 square kilometers of ocean.
The system, expected to be operational in 2024, will replace the current vessel traffic and management information systems sponsored by the Ghana Maritime Authority. It is similar to the Falcon Eye surveillance system used in Nigeria, according to a report by the Ghana Peace Journal (GPJ).
Yakubu said a team from the authority and leaders from the Ghana Navy traveled to Serbia, where they participated in factory acceptance trials for the new equipment.
The planning and preparation needed to acquire the equipment to have total maritime domain surveillance of the EEZ has been ongoing for 10 years, Yakubu said.
“Finally, we are about to achieve this essential objective, which has run through all the strategies that our predecessors had developed and worked with,” he said, as reported in the GPJ.