'Show us the boarding passes' – MP questions evidence for South Africa evacuation flights

Bosome-Freho MP, Nana Asafo-Adjei, has challenged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to produce verifiable travel records for Ghanaians said to have returned from South Africa on commercial flights during the recent evacuation exercise.

According to the MP, the ministry reported that 926 of the 1,964 Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa travelled on chartered flights, leaving 1,038 passengers to be accounted for through commercial flights.

However, he said documents examined by the Minority did not sufficiently establish that all the reported passengers actually travelled.

Nana Asafo-Adjei said the records available to his team contained ticket-based evidence for only 247 people, which he argued was inadequate to verify the full number of passengers said to have travelled commercially.

He maintained that boarding passes or passenger manifests would provide stronger evidence that the individuals actually boarded the flights.

“The best international practice to retire any traveller, the best international practice is by a boarding pass,” he said.

He explained that while a passenger manifest could also serve as evidence, merely purchasing an air ticket did not necessarily prove that the person travelled.

“I can buy a ticket for you to travel to UK. You may not go. There will be no show. But I would pay. It doesn’t show that you travelled,” he said.

The MP therefore called on the Foreign Affairs Ministry to provide documents that can independently verify the passengers who travelled on commercial flights and reconcile the figures presented for the evacuation exercise.