Embassies advised to adopt measures to help check congestion at Premises

Kumasi, July 20, GNA - An appeal has been made to Embassies in the country to adopt measures that would help address the problem of congestion and over-crowding at their premises by visa applicants. Mr. Odeneho Kwaku Appiah, immediate Past President of the Youth in Action, a network of youth groups, who gave the advice, observed that the large crowd of visa applicants and the long queues often formed at the forecourt of Embassies in Ghana does not augur well for the image of the nation. Mr. Appiah made the appeal when he addressed a forum of the "Nso Nyame Ye Kuo", a social club in Kumasi on Saturday. He regretted that some applicants have to spend several days and nights in those long queues, only to be refused visas.

Mr. Appiah suggested that as part of measures to check such congestion, Embassies could make it a policy that only applicants granted permit for interviews on specified dates, would be admitted to the premises of the Embassies. Mr. Appiah expressed concern about the practice whereby some Embassies resort to "placing visa refusal stamp at the back of passports of applicants who are eventually denied visas". He noted that such a practice makes it difficult for an applicant, who is refused visa at one Embassy, to secure any visa again from another Embassy, using the same passport.

Mr. Daniel Osei, secretary of the club, attributed the crave by Ghanaians to seek greener pastures abroad to the prevailing economic hardships and unemployment in the country. Mr. Osei however, said the economic hardships notwithstanding, it was still vital for Ghanaians, especially the professionals to stay in their own land of birth and contribute their quota to national development since "no outsider will come to develop Ghana for us, unless we do it ourselves".