Stop treating Ghanaians like slaves - Kofi Kapito to foreign missions

The Executive Director of the Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), Kofi Kapito, has charged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration to demand better services for Ghanaians from Foreign missions.

Mr Kapito explained that it was time “Ghanaians spoke against unfair treatment because we are not slaves”.

Cataloguing a myriad of problems, Mr Kapito said he would petition the ministry to take action in the interest of Ghanaians.

He told Moro Awudu on Class FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Wednesday, May 3, that the US Embassy, British High Commission, and other foreign missions must refund visa fees if they reject the applications of persons who wish to travel to that country.

He explained that in the case of the British High Commission, for instance, visa application fees vary depending on the duration of one’s stay in the UK. However, an individual who pays a higher amount for a particular duration could be given approval to stay for a shorter period while the difference in visa cost is not refunded.

He was not enthused that foreign missions could easily obtain information on Ghanaian travellers from their banks when such information is supposed to be confidential.

The disgruntled consumer protection advocate could not understand why Chinese travel to Ghana and obtain visa on arrival yet Ghanaians who wish to travel to China cannot also obtain visa after they have arrived in the Asian country.

For him, foreigners do not come up against such hostilities when they travel to Ghana and it was bad that the country’s leaders have done nothing about the ill treatments meted to Ghanaians.

Mr Kapito emphasised that the time had come for such mistreatments to cease and called on stakeholders to ensure Ghanaians were treated fairly.