Ghana-US deportee arrangement: Let’s not politicise a humanitarian act — Nii Lante Vanderpuye

The National Coordinator of the District Road Improvement Programme (DRIP), Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has urged Ghanaians to avoid politicising the Ghana–United States third-party deportee arrangement.

He asserted that the deal is a humanitarian exercise and without financial compensation as clarified by Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa.

Speaking on Accra-based Channel One TV’s Breakfast Daily on Thursday, September 25, the former Odododiodio MP said treatment metered out to the deportees can happen to anyone including Ghanaians.

“As the minister said, there’s no benefit attached to this. Ghana is not receiving any monetary or any other considerations in this. He explained it explicitly. He’s saying, this is purely a humanitarian gesture, and I want to see it as such,” Nii Lante Vanderpuye stressed.

“They are just picked up, packed onto a plane, and they are given a special card because some of the people are arrested at times when they don’t even have access to their passports,” he added.

Nii Lante Vanderpuye described the Minority’s criticism as premature, urging Parliament to engage the minister for timelines on when the arrangement might mature into a formal bilateral agreement.

“I think what the Minority has done is what my very good senior brother Kweku Baako will call premature ejaculation,” he said.

His remarks follow a demand from the Minority in Parliament for government to suspend the deportee arrangement.

At a press conference on Wednesday, September 24, Ranking Member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Abu Jinapor, described the agreement as unconstitutional due to the lack of Parliamentary ratification.

“The government’s conduct in operationalising the agreement with the United States without parliamentary ratification is a direct constitutional violation of Article 75 and an affront to the authority of the Supreme Court,” Mr. Jinapor stated.