Economic crisis: Ghanaians turn to US Visa Lottery to escape hardship

Over one thousand Ghanaians have thronged the Circle overhead, where a stand has been mounted by some personnel to help applicants apply for the American Visa lottery.

According to one of the facilitators of the American Visa Lottery, a total of 1,561 Ghanaians have been registered in the past 4 weeks.

Some applicants captured in a video report filed by Joy News explained that the current economic crisis, consisting of the high cost of living, was a contributing factor to their relocation abroad.

They also saw the American Visa Lottery as an opportunity to travel abroad in search of greener pastures.

One of the interviewees who was keen on not returning to Ghana should she get selected said, "The country is hard so for an opportunity like this, you have to grab it with both hands else it will skip. That’s why I’m applying for the visa…the only time you will see me in Ghana if I’m able to get there is when I’m either deported or there’s a war outbreak."

Another interviewee said, "You are in your own country, yet, you are suffering. You are being treated as somebody who does not come from Ghana so if go to Togo and you go and suffer there, is it not better than staying in your own country suffering."

Meanwhile, the country's consumer price inflation (CPI) for October this year has reached 40.4 percent.

According to the Ghana Statistical Service, the new rate is the highest recorded in 20 years.

The government statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said the increase in inflation was linked to rising food prices over the past few months.

The price of food reached 43.7 per cent inflation in October from 37.8 per cent recorded in September this year while non-food inflation rose to 37.8 per cent from 36.8 percent.

Fuel prices and transportation fares have also shot up in recent times.

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