Ghanaians living in Italy, especially in the north and deep down south in Sicily of the country, will from the middle of this year need not travel very long distances to the Ghana Embassy in Rome to apply for or renew their passport.
This was disclosed by the new Ghana Ambassador to Italy, His Excellency Charles Agyei-Amoama, when he granted Ghanaweb correspondent in Italy, Reggie Tagoe, an interview at his office of the Ghana Mission in the Italian capital, Rome.
Below is the full text of that interview.
Reggie Tagoe (RT): Your Excellency let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on your new appointment as Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy. Thank you also for giving me the opportunity to be here. Many Ghanaians in the diaspora and I believe elsewhere don’t know you.
The question is: Who is Charles Agyei-Amoama? A re-run of your background Sir! H.E. Agyei-Amaoma (H.E.) (He laughs): Well I’m a Ghanaian, my father, Moses Agyei-Amoama comes from Begoro in the Eastern Region, my mother comes from Ashanti-Mampong in the Ashanti Region. I started my elementary education in Mampong-Ashanti, most of my primary school was at Akropong-Akwapim from there I went back to Ashanti and to Mampong Bekwai, Begoro and then Koforidua. My father was always travelling, so I was always a new person in school. Finally, I finished my elementary education at Kpandu Evangelical Presbyterian Middle School, then continued at Kpandu Technical Institute.
After a year of pre-technical at Kpandu I went back to Kumasi Polytechnic and spent 3 years in Basic Engineering O.T.D., which is a City & Guilds course in Electrical and Chemical Engineering, then to Kwame Nkrumah University (Tech) to study mechanical Engineering. I graduated in 1969.
I served in the Ghana Civil Service for about 4 years working with the Ministry of Agriculture, initially with the Mechanisation and Transport Division as a Regional Engineer in Tamale then I was seconded to UNDP Agricultural Mechanisation Project as the Senior Project Engineer. I left the Civil Service 2 years after and joined the private sector where I went to John Holt Bartholomew, then Ford Dealers in Ghana where I was Service Manager for 3 years.
After that I moved on to Kumasi Brewery as Mechanical Engineer where I stayed for 2 years and later left for Canada.
(RT): Your Excellency, it’s been learnt apart from being the Ghana Ambassador to Italy you are also the Ambassador to Turkey, Croatia, Greece and Slovenia. In the diplomatic circles how does this work out, are you to be at different places at the same time?
(H.E): The explanation is this. Countries that don’t have enough resources, Ambassadors already holding office in one Mission can also be designated to take care of those countries with less resources, that’s why I am also responsible to the countries you mentioned.
At least I have to visit those countries two, three times a year. First I present my credentials because we’ve a relationship with them. I don’t only go there for visiting, there are Ghanaians, among them Ghanaian students, I attend to their problems but more so I look for investments and investors to invest in Ghana.
(RT): Your Excellency, your being appointed as Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy came at a difficult time, in the sense that there was a passport fee increase feud between the Embassy and the Ghanaian communities in Italy.
From where are you starting off with this problem?
(H.E): I think Ghanaians are understanding people. I will say that a lot of the problems evolved because of lack of communication, it was just misunderstanding. In my travels to the regions visiting Ghanaians in their communities, mostly through their Associations I explained to them diasporians can help our nation. I’m a diasporian myself. The monies generated at the Embassy which people claim we are sending home for our own projects is not true.
It goes into a Consolidated Fund which the government uses in carrying out projects for the country. Ghanaians in the diaspora don’t pay any taxes, our taxes don’t go back home to help in infrastructural developments and therefore when I explain this to my contemporaries that may be this is a way of helping with some of the projects they do understand.
(RT): Sir, in the very few months after taking office in Italy, you’ve taken the task to be involved in activities concerning the Ghanaian communities, you’ve had meeting with the Council of Ghanaian Nationals Association in Italy (COGNAI). How are you going to get the various Ghanaian Associations to work with the Embassy if anything at all after the passport fee increase problem? (H.E): Well, I’m telling Ghanaians here the Associations represent them and therefore they cannot live outside the Association and express their views. First of all, Ghanaians must become part and parcel of the Ghana Association in their locality. That’s what I’m communicating to them. I’ve visited the umbrella of all the Associations - COGNAI - and held discussion with them. I’m not going to end it there and will visit the various cities and deal directly with all the Associations. I want to know what’s happening and the issues on hand.
We all have problems, if you are coming with a problem you must come with a possible solution, so between the two or three we sit down and dialogue to find the most appropriate way of resolving those issues.
(RT): How does one come to see you in the areas you mentioned, what is the process and you mean anyone, by appointment, anytime?
(H.E): I heard through the grapevine that they don’t see the Ambassador in the past, plus a lot of complains. I have made it a point that my administration is a very transparent one, anybody at all can request to see me or any of my officers and have made it a point that I visit the Consular Section, where the Ghanaian do come everyday. I interact with them I find out where they’re coming from not only here in Italy but also in Ghana, what they’re doing and their family situation.
I chat with them and I think by doing that I’m breaking the ice and they’re realising that, after all, the Ambassador is their servant and not their boss.
(RT): Sir, the Ghana Embassy here is supposed to see to the welfare of Ghanaians in Italy apart from diplomatic issues with the Italian government. Often Ghanaians complain about the Embassy not being there for them whenever the need arises. Reason? The Embassy has no funds.
But your countrymen and women - Ghanaians here - are saying through passport fees and other related documents the Ghana Embassy in Italy is generating funds for the Ghana Government. In fact between July 2005 and September 2006, 20,000 Ghanaian passports here expired. Based on the current fee for renewal, if all these passports are renewed that will fetch the Ghana government €4 million.
Don’t you think they have a point in saying the Embassy should come to their aid when the need arises? In some cases the Associations have to cater for travel expenses when they host diplomatic officials of the Mission.
(H.E): This passport fees they’re talking about goes to central chest of the Government of Ghana and that money is used for all kinds of things.
We don’t know really what it’s used for because it goes into the Consolidated Fund as I have explained earlier and the government decides priority areas. But that aside, I’m a diasporan, I have lived outside and know what happens, I don’t think I’m going to sit down and see that a Ghanaian Association or a Ghanaian is in distress and that we don’t have money. It must be pointed out that the monies received as passport fees and other related documents at the Embassy is earmarked for specific things in the Mission. What you are talking about which is mostly welfare issue we don’t get a dime for it. What we receive from the Government is for administrative purposes for running of the Mission.
I think we should be pro-active that’s why I’m going to the Associations so we can find some means to do certain things and put some monies somewhere.
(RT): What sort of things Sir?
(H.E.): I talked of the Jubilee Ball during the launching of Ghana’s 50 years of Independence by the Mission. If this is done once a year it will generate some funds, then the local Associations would keep the money, we all come to the understanding there are some times Ghanaians are in trouble and this money should be utilised when that time comes than we wait till the problem arises and we pass the hat around.
(RT): Let’s shift attention now on the Ghana Government, what have been some of the achievements and failures of the present Ghana Government? (H.E.): Well the achievements are too numerous for me to elaborate …
(RT): Give me examples.
(H.E.): Infrastructural developments, there have been improvement on the state of the roads, Accra-Kumasi road, work on the dual carriage has not been done yet but the old road is being rehabilitated and the work is being done to much more satisfaction. There is construction supervision and they are adhering to standards. Accra-Cape Coast road is being done. In the Accra Metropolis the roads are being done, Kumasi and the rest. Things were neglected for too long and I’m hoping that in 2 years Ghanaians will come to realise the amount of improvement that we have in our infrastructural development.
(R.T.): Your Excellency, Ghana is calling for investments. The taps are not running everyday, electrical power is not consistent. How can people invest? (H.E.): Rome was not built in a day, the state the present Government found all the systems was bad. Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation was there in name, nothing was happening.
You are right on the assessment you made. That’s why the Government has made infrastructural development one key component in its development programmes, where we were with electrical power we are much improved now but still we have a deficit that’s why the power is being rationed.
Akosombo, Kpong and what we have now is way below what we should have therefore with the budget that was presented the Government has made energy development the key under its projects. I think a lot is going to be rectified in the energy sector. New thermal plants are going to be built, we cannot rely on Akosombo because the water coming in there has not been rising, we are not getting the rainfalls to feed the lake.
(RT): Let me ask you this. Do we always have to depend on the rain for the water level of the dam for our electrical power?
(H.E.): For a hydro-dam you need the rain to feed your source to create the dam. That’s why many countries have gone to nuclear energy, other countries are using thermal generation. Ghana has a problem, we can go into thermal generation but using crude oil to fire boilers is too expensive, we don’t have oil, that’s why the Government has spent so much time to get the West African gas pipe line built.
It’s 95% completed now. This year I think all the thermal generating stations are going to use natural gas which is way cheaper. We have talked much about industrialisation, without energy we can’t industrialise.
(RT): Sir, I believe one of the Mission’s aims here is to attract investments from Italians. In what areas are Italians investing in Ghana? (H.E.): Good Question. I think all these years in the past we’ve dwelt too much on government to government, a government can only give so much because the Italian government is also responsible to report to its citizens. Many countries have developed or secured investments through the private sector and that’s what Ghana is now aiming at. Two investment meetings that we will be holding this year is geared to the private sector for people to invest in Ghana.
Italian Government has been assisting Ghana for many years, British Government among others has been assisting but also we need individuals and private companies to put in investments. They will only do this when the conditions are right. If they know they can get a return on their investments, yes. If they know there is rule of law, yes. Ghana as a market with 20million people is too small for many investors.
That’s why the Government has spent so much time in developing ECOWAS, using Ghana as an entry point to the West African market. Therefore you set up a Company in Ghana and it feeds the rest of West Africa.
(RT): Your Excellency, let me get back to the passport issue. You mentioned some time ago during your interactions with the Ghanaian communities that application for the Ghana passport would be done on line. How close are we to this system?
(H.E.): We are close to getting our website. We’ve been working with the Ministry of Communication in Ghana because they have the expertise in these areas.
I will say that in a month or two, our website will be up and running. Application for passport is not going to be done on line but rather you can go on line, download the Forms and fill it.
One has to fill the Form giving guarantors and I’m trying to locate some specific people, some Ghanaians who have distinguished themselves here, and I’m using the various communities to tell me who these people are. These people will be responsible for their signatures as guarantors for passport applications.
We all know the present system has produced other nationalities acquiring the Ghanaian passport. I’m telling Ghanaians here they don’t have to sit down for these things to happen, if we do it we are sinking our own country.
I think in the middle of this year Ghanaians here would be applying for their passport from where they reside in Italy, they don’t have to come to Rome.
(RT): Having carried out stories on the Mission in the past I observed the staffs doesn’t feel free to give out information and there is a feeling of being victimised.
How far have you been able to put this right?
(H.E.): I’ll say the staffs that I’ve here have been very co-operative and they are working their hearts out. I’ve told them I’m operating a transparent Mission, if you want to come and see me there shouldn’t be any road block.
In the past things are happening the way it were because people were giving out information when even they don’t have the right information and therefore they were embarrassing the Embassy and the Government. Now every Monday morning the management meets and we discuss issues, everybody is abreast and knows what is going on therefore I don’t think if one is asked a question that person will hesitate to answer because there is free flow of information. That goes further, the management team meets with the locally recruited staffs once a month and so we have built a bridge, if there is something happening each and everyone in the Mission is aware of it. There are no secrets.
(RT): Your Excellency, the situation in this Embassy as far as Ghanaians are concerned is not easy, infact it’s not an easy terrain. What legacy will you like to leave behind when you are no more here or what would you like Ghanaians in Italy to remember you for?
(H.E.): (He laughs). I want to be remembered that Agyei-Amoama came to Rome at a time when there was so much commotion, so much mistrust. Ghanaians view the Embassy as some foreign element. I want these things to dissipate.
I want Ghanaians here to know this is their home and the Embassy is here to work with Ghanaians to solve problems to move the country ahead, to project a better image of Ghana in Italy and it’s not only the Embassy which is doing that , it’s the whole Ghanaian community. The Embassy is here to disseminate information from home which is lacking in many cases. I want Ghanaians here to know that the country of ours we all love it and therefore we have to protect it.
(RT): What will you finally like to tell Ghanaians in Italy?
(H.E.): My final comment to all Ghanaians in Italy is that they have heard Ghanaians in Britain have done something through the High Commissioner, they’ve been able to raise money to aid Korle Bu Hospital in Ghana or fund a project, they’ve heard through the High Commissioner in Sierra Leone, Ghanaians in that country have done something similar and it became specific to those countries.
What are Ghanaians in Italy going to do for their country? Some sort of symbol that Ghanaians in Italy did this or that, not Agyei-Amoama, not the Embassy but Ghanaians in Italy.
I want to help co-ordinate that. I know that as Ghanaians in the diaspora we can do so much, we haven’t touched the surface at all. Some are coming to me making suggestions and therefore this is the year. I want Ghanaians in Italy to come out and say we want to do this, maybe this highway, maybe this key bridge, we want it to be our responsibility.
(RT): Your Excellency, thanks for having me. It’s pleasure being here.
(H.E.): Thank you
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