EDITORIAL: $12 Million to Evacuate Ghanaians?

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported yesterday that the government has committed $12million to hire a plane to fly home about 50 stranded Ghanaians in Barbados. The deputy minister of foreign affairs, Dr. Charles Brempong-Yeboah, who made this known said the stranded travelers paid between 4000 and 10000 Ghana Cedis to get to Barbados for just two weeks.

According the minister, the plight of the stranded Ghanaians was an embarrassment to the government especially when they are being shown on television screens in that country. To him they could have used the money they paid to the travel agent to invest at home instead of embarking upon such trips with the hope of moving from there to enter either Canada or the USA.

First of all Chronicle wishes to commend the government for the wise decision it has taken to bring the stranded travelers back home. The Nation has indeed demonstrated that she cares for every Ghanaian. Chronicle, however, thinks that bringing down our fellow Ghanaians should not end there, but the Government must investigate to find out those who were behind their trip and how come they could not bring them back home.

It is our contention that government cannot use taxpayers money to bring the people down when those who have profited from the trip are allowed to go scort free to enjoy their booty. Government must punish the travel and Tour Company that organized the trip to serve as a deterrent to others, otherwise people will take advantage of government's magnanimity to pile such avoidable debt on the government in future.

Ghanaians must also not allow themselves to be tricked by agents who promise to get them to either Europe or America. They must stay and get proper travel documents from the various embassies in the country before traveling. Ghanaians do not need a visa to enter most of the Caribbean countries and this is what the travel agents seem to be using to exploit travelers.

When Israel invaded Lebanon somewhere in 2006 in search of their two captured Israeli soldiers, which led to disturbances in the Middle East region, the Canadian government came under severe criticism at home for chartering a plane to bring down Lebanese born Canadians. The reason was that the same people had previously been evacuated during similar disturbances but they went back two weeks after being flown to Canada. We are drawing this analogy because if a well resourced country like Canada came under criticism for using money to fly in their people, then what about Ghana, which is officially a Heavily Indebted Poor Country.

Certainly, we cannot afford to throw away money in such a way since there are millions in this country who do not even have access to good drinking water. $12 million could have used to provide water system for a small community but we are going to waste it on such avoidable trip.