Ghana's Passport Permitted Into South Africa: Foreigners Will Attempt To Get Ghanaian Passports, Vigilance Needed

The Ghanaian Passport is one of the Most Powerful passports in Africa after the South African and Egyptian Passports.

Ghana was listed recently amongst six countries that can visit South Africa Without Visa. This was after the south Africa's home Affairs Ministry took a decision to allow such countries to boost tourism amongst those countries.

Ghana was the only west African Country granted such privilege though other countries like Nigeria, Liberia, Cameroon, The Gambia etc wished for Same.

This will mean that with the ECOWAS free movement into countries for days, more foreigners will troop into the country in an attempt to get Ghanaian passports in order to be able to visit south Africa without restrictions, considering how loose some of our passport offices, officers and birth and death registry is, it will be a sad moment because most foreigners will use money and other strategies to bypass some laid down policies to allow only registered Ghanaians acquire passports due to personal gains. Its not new as the births and death registry was recently exposed by a Starr FM and Joy News uncover which proved officers in eastern and Upper West including Service personnel were aiding foreigners to acquire international birth certs at a cost.

This has reduced our reputation and relevance in the face of other countries as these foreigners use our identity to portray certain criminal acts which in the end affects the Country's opportunities in the global level. We never know what some of these people intend doing with these document and yet we aid them to change their names and address to acquire such a vital document. It will surprise you to know some Ghanaians are registering foreigners for Ghana card and think they are making money or being smart. Those people will take away our few opportunities and we will have more hardship on us. They'll be able to do national service, go into any public sector work, hold public offices, travel in the name of the country etc and in the end occupy the space your brother or sister at home will one day hope for, can we do that in other countries?, let's grow up please. When this country is messed up we'll be treated like slaves in other countries and that is when we'll know the reality of life, only your parents wish for you to be better than them anybody at all will be jealosed when you do better than them.

Let's be mindful of how we share our identity and image with others.

By: Tuorimuo Elvis Philip
University of Education, Winneba
[email protected]