OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Sunday 6.00pm.
SOUTH Africa is set to join the international community in a drive to combat drug trafficking when it on Monday signs a United Nations convention specifically formulated to deal with the growing problem of international drug trafficking.
South Africa will become the 149th country to join the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances when it signs up at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Monday. The country has become a transit route for illicit drug-trafficking. By implementing the convention, South Africa will co-operate with laws and strategies of the international community to combat illicit drug trafficking, as well as ensuring that the overflow of drugs destined for consumption elsewhere do not enter its borders, the statement said.
Its membership to the convention will require South Africa to introduce legislation to allow it to confiscate intercepted drugs, to give effect to extradition requests, to make provision for mutual legal assistance and to make it possible to transfer, from one government to another, proceedings for criminal prosecution. Already South Africa’s internal legislation complies with these requirements.
The departments of justice, finance, Customs and Excise and the South African Police Service will be responsible for implementing the convention.