Ghanaians abandon job search in Qatar

About 30 members of a group of Ghanaians recruited and ready to be flown to work in Qatar through a local recruitment agency say they are no longer interested in the overseas jobs.

The workers are demanding a refund of two thousand dollars each paid to Rahman Consultancy to facilitate their travel.

The prospective job seekers were due to fly out of Accra, Ghana on Tuesday night but thronged the Labone offices of Rahman Consultancy to cancel their appointments and to demand the refund of their monies after Joy FM broadcast complaints of some 200 Ghanaian migrant workers said to be living in horrid conditions in Qatar.

Those already in Qatar who placed an SOS call to the offices of Joy FM said they had been compelled to live on rice, soft drinks and bread only because they had not been paid wages since they started work in September.

They said accommodation offered them was no better. A spokesperson for the group told Joy News 10 people lived in one room and added that although he and his colleagues would be happy to return home, their travel documents were being held by officials of the Qatari company Al-Jabeer.

Officials at the Rahman Consultancy have agreed to refund the monies to the group abandoning the trip. The Managing Director Abubakar Abdul-Rahman however denied any wrong doing on the part of his company.

According to him the unpaid wages of the Ghanaian migrant workers was a minor hiccup that should be solved soon. He told Joy News the construction firm in Qatar, Al-Jabeer has agreed to pay the outstanding wages.

In spite of the challenges, some 23 other Ghanaians were determined to confront whatever fate awaited them in Qatar and were expected to make the journey to Qatar on Tuesday tonight, if only they did not change their minds before the flight.

In a related development, Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Rashid Bawa has denied claims by the stranded migrant workers in Qatar that he failed to offer them assistance despite several appeals to him.

Rashid Bawa, who is currently in Ghana for the Ghanaian diplomats’ conference told Joy News no such requests had come to him.

He however declined an interview saying that the Foreign Ministry was gathering all the facts surrounding the plight of the Ghanaian workers and would respond appropriately in due time.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Minister for Manpower Development, Youth and Employment, Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddiq said he had summoned an emergency meeting over the claims from the Ghanaians in Qatar.

The Minister said he was surprised and amazed at the reported despair of the Ghanaian workers whose sojourn into Qatar through the facilitation of Raman Consultancy received official government blessing.

The migrant workers told Joy News early on Tuesday morning that were planning a demonstration to protest the non-payment of their withheld wages as well as the harsh living conditions under which they lived.