Beggars besiege Streets

By Ato Keelson

Signals picked by this newspaper points to a negative phenomenon developing at Osu, a suburb of Accra and other regional capitals which if not checked, would brand Ghana in the eyes of the world as a country of domestic beggars and affect her tourism industry.

This is in the light of the upsurge of Chadian beggars who are filling every corner of Accra’s busy streets with every passing day. Most of these beggars are found especially in areas where there are clusters of shops with cultural artifacts and foreign items. And one of such places and streets where these beggars compete for space and survival is at the Osu Oxford Street.

This reporter in one of his news hounds at Osu gathered that the Chadian beggars work very late in the night and at times harass foreigners by tugging their shirts and holding their hands in anticipation of 10 or 20 Ghana Pesewas.

Interestingly TODAY learnt that the continuous presence of the beggars on the streets of Osu and other places in Accra sometimes results into nasty skirmishes between their counterparts in the country who think these Chadian beggars are robbing them of their daily sales. The situation is also is causing much discomfort to foreign tourists and having a big toll on Ghana’s tourism industry.

In depth investigations by this newspaper regarding the large presence of Chadians into the country revealed that there is laxity on the part of immigration officers who man the country’s borders. In some cases monies are extorted from some of these foreigners within West Africa without any background scrutiny by immigration officers.

Furthermore, TODAY found out that the immigration officers who patrol especially the borders of Ghana take monies from many Africans and allow them free entry into the country. This is, most often than not done by the officers because of a meager salary of GH100.00 in addition to poor conditions of services.

Meanwhile information available indicates that Yaakese in the Western Region and Polimakon and Wonjuga in the Upper East are some of the places where immigration officers work and live under deplorable conditions. Indeed, it was very distasteful as some of the officers at post were ill-equipped to discharge their duties effectively.

Another disturbing thing about the plight of immigration officers is that management has made no frantic efforts to address their legitimate concerns.

Some of the officers who spoke to this reporter on condition of anonymity disclosed that all what the institution is preoccupied with is to recruit mew officers in order to extort monies from them. They also intimated that the senior officers who do the recruitment have always had the percentage when they go for their medical examinations.

Moreover, they also could not fathom why the vast stretch of land at Assin-Fosu belonging to the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has not been put to good use.