Rumor Mill of Wednesday, 8 September 2004
Source: sinaman@hotmail.com
The Present Ghanaian Consul in Paris is helping the French authorities to deport more Ghanaians from France than ever.
A nefarious practise diminishing the spirits of Ghanaians in France.
Since this man assumed office within less than a year now, many Ghanaians have been deported from France with his collaboration than all those deported in the regime of all his predecessors. Not only is he helping the French authorities to deport Ghanaians, but has also issued out stringent measures in the issuance of Ghanaian Passports and other official documents that Ghanaians could easily obtain from the Embassy in Paris during the era of his predecessors, and also increased the processing fees of all documents including passports.
All these in less than a year that he took office. Because of this, Ghanaians in France prefer to obtain documents right from Ghana through their relatives or friends back home to going to the obtain them from the embassy just to avoid going through the inconveniences and difficulties being meted out to Ghanaians by the consular section. We all know how people are struggling in Ghana to get money, travel documents to travel outside our country for greener pastures, but his man is not being conscious of Ghanaian problems home and abroad and has deliberately refused to know how Ghanaians are suffering, starving and dying due to the present economic situation in Ghana.
When the French police takes someone to the embassy to seek for a Travel Certificate (TC) to enable them deport the fellow, this Consul will neither interview nor make any further enquiry to know if the person is really a Ghanaian, but just hand out a form to the person to fill and sign without any explanation or whatsoever.
Unlike his predecessors who will spend time with the person brought to the Embassy, interview him or her to know if really he or she is a Ghanaian, talk to him or her, advise him or her, boost up his or her moral before finally issuing out the TC if the person really accepts to be deported. Therefore most people find themselves in the next available flight to Ghana because they don?t know that by filling out and signing the form, they?ve unwillingly accepted to be deported. And when one refuses to fill the TC form or tries to plead with him by telling him ?please try to help me because money has been wasted to get me here?, he tells the person ?my friend don?t waste my time, come on, fill the form, go back home and find something better to do to help the country?. As if he has got a job back home to offer the person.
This Consul is really atrocious, stern, heartless, and have no conscience and we wonder if he?s a Vietnam War veteran because they were those who acts without mercy due to experience in killing. If one would consider the consequences people suffer as a result of deportation from abroad to Ghana and think of what he is doing to his own fellow countrymen and women one will conclude he is an enemy of our present society. (As I?m writing this mail, my own cousin has gone mad roaming down the streets of Accra soon after he was deported from France last December). He wouldn?t have gone mad if he had not suffered deportation. Of course Paris has never had a Consul of his calibre. If he doesn?t know that every Ghanaian in the Diaspora is contributing to the growth of our economy in various ways, I want him to know this.
Can one imagine, a family borrowing huge sum of money, and or selling their properties just to raise some money to help their son or daughter to travel abroad for Greener pasture, a consul who has been sent by the Government to help Ghanaians in distress abroad will just use the nib of his pen without reflecting, collaborate with the foreign authorities instead of helping, to deport the person because of paper. We are in support of him issuing out T.C.s for criminals like, drug dealers, sex offenders etc whose offences tarnish and jeopardise the image of our country but not people brought in for no crime or any serious offence but just paper. This man makes no difference at all, his only interest in just make sure you are deported when they bring you before him. And the most annoying part of it all is that, he issues out T.C.s easily for people to be deported but when one walks into the Embassy to request for a T.C to enable him or her travel back to Ghana, he will make you go through hell and in most cases will not issue out the T.C. the he will tell you go and bring you passport.
If the Kuffour Government brought this man purposely to help the French authorities deport as many Ghanaians back home, then it means the government has not been grateful to Ghanaians in the Diaspora?s contribution to the growth of the economy as the President announced when he was in Paris a couple of years ago. We went to know that his attitudes towards Ghanaians are uncalled for and he if he doesn?t put a stop to the atrocious practise we shall make his stay in Paris a bitter pill for him to swallow.