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Opinions of Monday, 28 August 2017

Columnist: Emmanuel Quarshie Degraft

The law governing Expatriates must work

Jihad Chabaan Jihad Chabaan

The need to encourage bilateral trade which does not exclude investment in line with the ECOWAS and AU membership agreement is the reason Ghana can trades with the rest of the world and also the free movement of expatriates into the country.

As a result, any individual with a positive mindset can enter the country provided he/she has genuine documents to support such visit into the country. The visit of expatriates into the nation has being motivated by the following reasons including:

To trade

For excursions

Tourism purposes

For the purpose of education

Missionary purposes and many other reasons.

Before permits and visas are granted, the individual visiting another country must state categorically the purpose for the visit. The reasons stated above mostly applies. Because such visits benefits the country, we warmly welcome all expatriates who visits as tourist to see our tourist sites etc because it contributes entirely to our annual revenue.

In as much as most foreigners through tourism, Foreign Direct

Investments(FDI’s), peaceful holidays/vacations in Ghana etc have contributed immensely towards our national income and development through providing jobs, paying taxes and many others, most of these expatriates too have become a thorn in the flesh of most Ghanaians.On August 17th 2017, a Nigerian stabbed and killed a Ghanaian at Sowutuom. The Nigerian accused the deceased of stealing his mobile phone and this led to the untimely death of the Ghanaian citizen on his own soil killed by an expatriate.

The demise of the Ghanaian unfortunately led to a crash between a section of Ghanaians at Sowutuom and Nigerians which the former has vowed to attack all Nigerians. The police command had to deploy police reinforcement to curb the situation and to prevent any further attacks (Source: Ghanaweb). Also, in the current agenda to stop the practice of galamsey which was causing harm to our water bodies, we rather found an expatriate who was the main pioneer championing the activity of galamsey and who happened to be Asia Huang popularly called Aisha.

On top of this shame after her arrest blackmailed our top politicians and security officers with sex tapes and videos she had recorded (source: Myjoyonline.com). Lastly, on 26th of Febuary 2017, Evelyn was assaulted by one of her bosses at Marwako Fast food when her boss held her head and used it to rub through pepper that was being blended.

Jihad Thaabn, a brother-in-law to the owner of the restaurant had accused Evelyn of trying to destroy the blender and that resulted in such harsh treatment meted out to Evelyn. Rubbing her face in pepper didn’t end there but Jihad further locked her in one of the rooms in the restaurant for six hours and threatened her not to inform the police or risk losing her job (Source:myjoyonline.com).

We are a hospitable people, a nation full of peace-loving and kind hearted people, it is an undeniable fact that this nation is blessed. The reason we keep having expatriates show interest in Ghana as a place for tourism, visits/vacations, business etc, however, such enthusiasm expressed by these expatriates shouldn’t end there, the law that governs these expatriates from the day of acquiring Visas, their entry into the country, doing business/visits/schooling and even time of departure must be strictly scrutinized by law.

There are a number of expatriates including Nigerians who are in this country for the purpose of schooling. Most of them take advantage of our hospitality to misbehave from the little information gathered.

With the stories we’ve heard so far, I think this is enough to prove these expatriates are taking undue advantage of the entire situation and I recommend their dos and don’ts needs to be properly defined to ensure the law protects both Ghanaians and any foreigner that visits our soil.

God lives.

The Writer Blogs At: Degraftxclsuive.blogspot.com