UK High Commissioner to Ghana, Jon Benjamin
The UK High Commissioner to Ghana Jon Benjamin has revealed that Ghanaians harass him on daily basis for visas.
“Almost every day, someone asks me for a visa,” he told an audience Thursday in an address on corruption, at the tenth anniversary ceremony of policy Think Tank IMANI Ghana in Accra.
Benjamin said the visa requests are made for “…for themselves, their spouse, child, brother, friend or neighbour and sometimes for their brother’s friend’s neighbour.”
“I’m already heartily tired of always saying the same thing: namely: “That if you comply with our immigration rules, you’ll get a visa, if you don’t, you won’t.”
“Knowing me or asking me for what is euphemistically called a personal meeting to lobby me won’t make a blind bit of difference,” he said.
He said: “I can neither impose change nor reverse any visa decision taken by our visa experts in accordance with our rules, for a system where such ad-hoc decisions was possible merely on the whims of the big boss.”
