As we welcome 245 of our compatriots again residence from Kuwait later on currently the issue have to be designed that it should not have taken an act of deportation by the Kuwaiti Governing administration at the expenditure of the Kuwaiti taxpayer to compel our Federal government to grant access to the Kotoka Global Airport to our fellow Ghanaians. In no way thoughts that the Akufo-Addo Administration regardless of its border closures has ongoing to open the airport for other nationals to be evacuated out of Ghana by their governments.
Several of the Ghanaians arriving now from Kuwait have harrowing stories to explain to. For quite a few months considering that the outbreak of COVID-19, we read them, saw their films and go through their petitions after statements that they ended up unfairly dismissed and ejected from their locations of get the job done.
As Ranking Member on the International Affairs Committee of Parliament, I observed the movie appeals they set with each other insisting they experienced money to obtain their personal tickets if only Govt shall concur to grant them accessibility to our airport. Undoubtedly, that prospect compared with deportation would have been more dignifying and they would have been very pleased of the country they have normally termed house.
The ordeals and studies of blatant discrimination as narrated by numerous of these returnees most of whom had been domestic staff should be the matter of thorough investigations.
Federal government must swap from its perfunctory posture and seem deeper further than the claims of Kuwaiti officials.
The investigations I call for will have to necessarily search into how these Ghanaians still left our shores in the to start with area? Which recruitment companies organized their travel? How did recruitment agents arrive to collude with condition officials from the Work Ministry all the way to the Ghana Immigration Company, specially, when there has been a ban on this kind of journey arrangements to Gulf States such as Kuwait since 2017?
Latest developments look to vindicate highly regarded establishments this sort of as the College of Ghana’s Centre for Migration Experiments (CMS) and Migrating out of Poverty (MOOP) which have long managed adhering to investigation they performed that Ghana’s ban on recruitment of employees to Gulf States and the freeze on recruitment licenses have been a disaster as they have unsuccessful to halt the exercise.
Over and above calling for extensive investigations, the Minority would be demanding answers in Parliament in the times forward.
I will have to emphasize, nevertheless, that the Akufo-Addo-led Government’s coverage on stranded Ghanaians abroad has been most insensitive, uncoordinated and absolutely inept. This is quite stunning for a President who at the time served as Minister for Overseas Affairs and Regional Integration.
If Government had listened to some of us a while again, we could have engaged in superior amount bilateral negotiations with counterpart Governments to support us in bringing back again dwelling stranded Ghanaians instead of opening our airport to the quite a few empty chartered flights around the past two months.
It is unacceptable and uncomfortable that whilst a lot of nations around the world have carried out various rounds of evacuation from Ghana and in other places, our Govt is however pussyfooting with claims that they are accumulating info and engaged in interior discussions after all these months. No one need to be advised that the make a difference in problem calls for a large sense of urgency and proritization.
I bet if it experienced been an IMF financial loan facility which has just turn into available for member states, the Akufo-Addo-led Federal government would have currently been bragging about how rapid and economical Ghana’s software was and how we designed these types of a persuasive circumstance to receive the greatest allocation.
Ghana can do significantly greater and we guaranteed can location significantly much better worth on the life of our citizens.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa
[MP, North Tongu
Ranking Member, Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs]
The situation was constructed on constitutional fallacy – Dame
