Ugandan activist 'exposes' dodgy, corrupt KIA officials

Stella Nyanzi, a controversial Ugandan academic and activist has taken a swipe at airport officials she described as dodgy and corrupt.

Nyanzi, who was recently in Ghana, wrote about her experience at the hands of some officials at the Kotoko International Airport (KIA) as she was flying out after her stay in Ghana.

Her gripe with the officials stemmed from what she described as they ripping of "gullible poor travelers with slightly overweight bags aboard KLM."

She lamented having to pay an amount of US$150 which amount the officials had opted to reduce by US$50 if she was interested in their unofficial offer.

She wrote of her experience wit a particular officer in a September 9 post on Facebook: "he wrote for me an ugly meaningless invoice/ receipt of USD$ 150 for the three excess kilos in my checked-in luggage."

In a followup post, she disclosed having paid the amount in the cedi equivalent.

Read her full post below:

There is a dodgy ring of Ghanaians at Kotoka International Airport who rip off gullible poor travelers with slightly overweight bags aboard KLM.



Comprising all sorts of diverse humans, they wear the airport staff uniform of royal blue skirts or trousers, and white shirts. Some wear royal blue jackets, too.

All of them wear name tags attached to woven string onto which is repeatedly embroidered the word Debill in bright red letters.

An elderly bespectacled woman with a wicked crooked smile exposing foul brown teeth pulled me aside and ordered me to redistribute my luggage by repacking my one piece of checked-in bag and my one piece of hand luggage.

Her skin reminded me of dying crocodiles. Her counterpart is a big lipped man with those biggish flat Ghanaian heads. He wrote for me an ugly meaningless invoice/ receipt of USD$ 150 for the three excess kilos in my checked-in luggage.

I said fine, stepped outside the side of the queue for checking in and repacked my bags. As I pulled my last zip, the same old shameless crook of a ring leader, came and whispered to me that I could pay only USD$ 100 and yet check in both pieces.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Akwaaba,” she responded with another dirty-brown toothed smile.

“But there are valuable documents in my hand luggage,” I said.

“Yes, I know-oh. Mummy, I understand-oh. I will even buy you a padlock to lock your bag very well-oh if you pay the less amount for two bags,” she replied.

This suspicious behavior irked me to the core. I hate blatant corruption.

“Will I get a receipt?” I asked.

“You pay only 100 dollars but check in two bags instead of paying 150 dollars for checking in only one bag,” she replied.