Ghana Airports Company chases out street beggars within the Kotoka International Airport enclave

An article l intended to write in order to bastardise the Ghana Airport Company Ltd. (GAC) could not be finished on time due to the many business opportunities the Christmas season brought.

While I was still attending to my busy schedules with everyday anxiety as far as finishing my article after the new year was concerned, the GACL surprised me. This time not 'sinning', instead they solved the very situation that my write-up was concerned and targeted at.

On the 21st December, 2020, it was a sigh of relief to witness security personnel of GACL including customs, immigration and private security officials chasing out beggars at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) traffic lights.

As Jesus Christ rightly puts it; beggars will always be in our midst. And nobody is denying these beggars their fundamental human rights including rights to livelihood and mobility to places of choice. But to make the first contact of this country, our mother gate, a begging hub is disgracing and must be condemned by all right thinking members of society.

It is still unfortunate, not only do we see group of adults parading themselves as beggars at the pedestrian walkway at the back of Marriot hotel and opposite to the Airport View Hotel, in the same place and under the traffic lights there are also kids —as low as five years who have joined the beggars at the place.

More distasteful and disheartening to the situation is that most of these children are offsprings of the adult-beggars of the place .The situation looks like the begging parents or adults are training the young children to succeed them in the field; these vulnerable kids do the begging and alms seeking while their parents sit and watch them— exposing the fate of these children at the mercies of passing maggot-vehicles or omen future.

I am tempted to believe someone, a talkative like myself, might have probably told these people about their profession and the wrong location, or probably their conscience judged them of how some of these folks strategically turned into traders in earbuds, nose masks, etc so there can be an excuse that they are into trading is amusing. Items not relevant to trade at the spot!

So for the many years that I have been in Accra and in each of my visits to the Kotoka Airport I have wondered, always, why these people are found at this place?

Knowing how strict enforcement of laws is at the airport, including parking of vehicles, I have particularly been concerned about the Management of the KIAs policies for that security zone. (Airport security cameras run onto the traffic lights, I am told). I had wondered why the Management refused to chase these people out.

What about the national policy on child labor? Aren't the security capo at the Airport ashamed that they pass everyday to and fro the airport while juveniles engage in trading—with the total disregard for enforcement of national laws?

But before the festive season passed for me to finish my manuscript and without my concerns churned out in public , I was interested to have witnessed on that day GACL security men chasing these beggars out of the place.

To the Management and staff of Ghana Airport Company Ltd. I say ayekoo!

I hope and trust that this good work will continue to the latter and Kotoka Airport shall win for the second time, the best airport in Africa . God bless our homeland Ghana.