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| Deceitful Qatar Trip And Bogus Ministerial Report |
12/23/2006 |
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Over a month ago, news broke about the suffering of migrant Ghanaian workers in the Arabian country of Qatar.
The close to 200 were sent to the Arabian country, through a consultancy firm called Rahman Consultancy but not without the knowledge and collaboration of the Ministry of Manpower Youth and Employment.
When the suffering of the migrant Ghanaian workers came to light, the Manpower and Employment Ministry, which should have put the necessary measures in place to ensure the creation of more jobs that could have possibly averted the exodus of our youth, nicodemously, acted as though it had no hand in the arrangements, that preceded the movement of our youth to Qatar.
I am told that the Ministry invited some journalists, asked them to submit copies of their passports for the necessary processes to facilitate their trip to Qatar to independently observe the situation in Qatar, to independently report to the entire nation, the situation confronting the migrant workers.
Media houses that were contacted readily gave out representatives for the trip, while other prominent media houses like Joy FM that did not get invitation from the Ministry for the trip kept fuming and questioning why they were not invited.
All of a sudden, the Ministry, a national institution, that should be responsible to the welfare of Ghanaian workers, pushed the responsibility of sending the journalists to the monitoring mission, to Rahman Consultancy.
This was totally irresponsible on the part of the Ministry. As if by a grand design to deceive the masses, the Consultancy firm is said to have taken up the responsibility of arranging for the trip and even promised to bear the cost of the trip and was never able to conclude the arrangements for the trip.
But if the people at the Employment Ministry were serious about the welfare of Ghanaian workers outside the country, would they have been so irresponsible to say the company that was being accused should be the same company that should sponsor journalists to Qatar?
But while the Employment Ministry was fumbling with the issue, Nana Akufo Addo''s Foreign Affairs Ministry that also had a responsibility to deal with all the diplomatic issues connected to the matter were resolved appeared to be doing virtually nothing about the situation.
At least, initially it was clear that the ministry of Foreign Affairs did not demonstrate its commitment to seeing to the suffering of the people in Qatar until the release of a certain purposeless report from the office of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, telling the Nation that he the Deputy Minister had been to Qatar to look at the situation.
Instead, telling the nation whether what the true situation in Qatar was, as far as the conditions of the Migrant workers were concerned, the deputy Minister chose to do the usual thing associated with our Ghanaian politicians.
He said he had a very fruitful interaction with the Ghanaians in Qatar as well as the Al-Jabal company that had employed the Ghanaians. In fact this was not the information Ghanaians wanted to hear about the situation.
We wanted to know whether it was true that our people who went there to seek employment were not getting the best kind of treatment as was being reported in the media.
Source:
Chronicle
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