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Stranded Ghanaians to be brought back home from
Barbados at a cost of $12 million
Accra, March 31, Ghanadot/GNA -
Government has committed over 12 million dollars to charter
a plane to fly home about 50 stranded Ghanaians who
travelled to Barbados last month in search of greener
pastures.
Dr Charles Brempong-Yeboah, Deputy Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Regional Co-operation and NEPAD, who disclosed this
to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, said ironically the
Ghanaians had paid between 4,000 Ghana cedis and 10,000
Ghana cedis each to travelling agents to get to Barbados for
a two-week stay.
“The Ghanaians who got to that country with the hope of
crossing over to the US, Canada and other developed
countries for greener pastures have been captured on
Barbados Television networks begging for alms.”
Originally 146 people, including 46 Nigerians were stranded
in Barbados but some managed to cross over to Trinidad and
Tobago.
Dr. Brempong-Yeboah described the situation as very
embarrassing to Ghana, explaining that, those Ghanaians
could have stayed at home with the huge amounts of money
they paid to the agents to do profitable business at home.
He stressed: “Any small businesses they had started in Ghana
would have grown by now.”
Dr Brempong-Yeboah observed that the US, Europe, Asia and
other huge economies in the world have been hit by economic
recession hence the need for such economic adventurists to
know that it is fruitless for them to embark on such
ventures.
Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the aftermath of the terrorist
attack on the US and the collapse of the USSR had changed
the political and economic dynamics of the world and so
there were no longer greener pastures anywhere.
Focussing on Ghana-Cuba relations, he said the two Third
World countries would reactivate the Permanent Joint
Commission for Co-operation, during a two-day meeting in
Accra on April 7 to April 9, 2008.
The 14th meeting of the Commission would span cocoa
processing, biological control of malaria and pest, sports,
education and agriculture and other mutually beneficial
issues.
Dr Brempong-Yeboah said the meeting which would iron out the
necessary details and protocols was made possible through
the official tour of Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama to
Cuba this month.
GNA
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