Following recent attacks on bullion vans by armed robbers, a Ghanaian company has introduced armoured-plated bullion vans to offer secured transit of money for institutions in the financial industry.
The company, Mon-Tran Limited, which has a long standing reputation of providing a wide range of support services to banks and financial institutions, aims to provide secured cash-in-transit services with its bulletproof bullion vans to prevent robbery attacks.
“We want to assure our clients, mostly banks that we have enough of the armoured vans to ensure a smooth and secured transfer of cash across the country.
“Our bullion vans are fit-for-purpose, therefore reducing risks on both the personnel and money being transported,” the Head, Branch Operations and Business Development of Mon-Tran Limited, Pascal Agbenu, said on the sidelines of a donation to the police administration at the police headquarters in Accra last Friday.
“By the nature of our operations in cash in transit, bullion and ATM services, we have heavily relied on the Ghana Police personnel in the delivery of our services to our clients.”
He said the Bank of Ghana has issued a directive to financial institutions to replace all soft-skinned vehicles with armoured-plated vehicles to prevent robbery attack, adding that the bulletproof vans by Mon-Tran would help serve that purpose.
Background
It will be recalled that on the on 24th December,2020,the Bank of Ghana (BoG) issued a directive to all financial institutions to get a bulletproof bullion vans to transit their cash.
BoG asked all banks to replace all soft-skinned Cash-in-Transit vehicles presently in nouse with fit-for-purpose armoured-plated vehicles with European Standard B6 ballistic protection for the passenger compartment and European Standard B4 for the cargo compartment.
In a statement , the Bank of Ghana stated that they had to be involved in the procurement of the armoured vehicles to ensure compliance with specifications.
All Deposit Money Banks(DMBs) and Specialised Deposit-taking Institutions(SDIs) were given up to July 1, 2023, to do that.
Failure to do so, the bank of Ghana said, would lead to the blocking of the entry of soft-skinned CIT vehicles onto its premises.
If banks had heeded the directive, the attack on a bullion van on Monday, June 14, 2021, at Adedenkpo around Korle-Bu in Accra could have been easily avoided.
