The Majority Leader, Mahama Ayariga, has assured Parliament that he will engage the Minister of Foreign Affairs to brief the members on the agreement Ghana had with the United States of America, leading to the acceptance of deportees of West African nationals.
He gave the assurance after the Minority had asked if he could programme the Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, to brief the House on the nature of the agreement Ghana reached with the US before accepting deportees and also Ghanaians deported from the US.
Request
The Second Minority Whip, Habib Iddrisu, who made the request, recalled that during the Majority Leader's welcome address last Tuesday, he informed the House that the US embassy in Accra had issued a reversal of the sanction on the five-year multiple visa to a three-month single entry visa for Ghanaian applicants.
“We need to know the reasons associated with the reversal. Is it tied to Ghana accepting the deportees into the country?” he asked.
Mr Habib cited a Supreme Court ruling regarding a similar case -the Gitmo Two- where people were brought into the country.
Good thing
Responding, the Majority Leader said the Second Minority Whip knew how to bring a minister to appear in the House to explain the government’s actions and inactions, as well as policies.
As a senior member of the House, Mr Ayariga said Mr Habib could file an urgent question to get the minister to respond to his question.
The Leader of Government Business said it was a good thing that the American government had reversed its visa sanctions on Ghana and the Foreign Affairs Minister should be commended for achieving the visa reversal.
He said many Ghanaians had family members in the US, where they frequent, and the sanctions were going to be “very inconveniencing to them.”
In addition, he said, there are many businesses Ghana was engaged in with the US and the sanctions were going to cripple a lot of those businesses.
“And so for the minister to have successfully, within a very short period of time, when the US announced the sanctions, gotten the US to reverse the sanctions is something that we should be happy and proud of and commend the minister very highly,” he said.
He said he clearly knew that every citizen of ECOWAS had the right to sit in an aircraft, disembark in Ghana and continue to their countries after 90 days, with or without an agreement with the US government.
“The ECOWAS protocol entitles every citizen to decide that they want to be sent to Ghana, and when they come to Ghana, they have a right to remain in Ghana for at least 90 days.
“And so any agreement that we will receive you when you arrive in Ghana is a natural consequence of the right of that ECOWAS citizen to decide that they want to disembark in Ghana from the US,” he said.
