$12 MILLION to be spent on stranded Ghanaians

Accra, March 31, GNA- Government has committed over 12 million dollars to charter a plane to fly home about 50 stranded Ghanaians who travelled to Barbados last month in search of greener pastures.

Dr Charles Brempong-Yeboah, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Co-operation and NEPAD, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said ironically the Ghanaians had paid between 4,000 Ghana cedis and 10,000 Ghana cedis each to travelling agents to get to Barbados for a two-week stay.

"The Ghanaians who got to that country with the hope of crossing over to the US, Canada and other developed countries for greener pastures have been captured on Barbados Television networks begging for alms."

Originally 146 people, including 46 Nigerians were stranded in Barbados but some managed to cross over to Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Brempong-Yeboah described the situation as very embarrassing to Ghana, explaining that, those Ghanaians could have stayed at home with the huge amounts of money they paid to the agents to do profitable business at home.

He stressed: "Any small businesses they had started in Ghana would have grown by now."

Dr Brempong-Yeboah observed that the US, Europe, Asia and other huge economies in the world have been hit by economic recession hence the need for such economic adventurists to know that it is fruitless for them to embark on such ventures.

Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the US and the collapse of the USSR had changed the political and economic dynamics of the world and so there were no longer greener pastures anywhere.

Focussing on Ghana-Cuba relations, he said the two Third World countries would reactivate the Permanent Joint Commission for Co-operation, during a two-day meeting in Accra on April 7 to April 9, 2008.

The 14th meeting of the Commission would span cocoa processing, biological control of malaria and pest, sports, education and agriculture and other mutually beneficial issues. Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the meeting which would iron out the necessary details and protocols was made possible through the official tour of Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama to Cuba this month.