Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has revealed that no Ghanaian in South Africa (SA) processed or being for voluntary evacuation, has been found to be wanted by authorities.
According to him, there is a clean bill of health for all citizens who are set to leave the country due to xenophobic attacks and the June 30 deadline issued by the March for March group led by convener, Jacinta Zuma.
His remarks come in the wake of accusations by the group that other African nationals go back to their countries to fix them so they can fix theirs.
The youth have accused the others of taking their jobs, contributed to high crime rates, insecurity among other.
But speaking in a recent interview, Ablakwa, who has vowed government will continue to ensure that it citizens everywhere are safe, said so far, no member of the evacuees has been identified as a criminal or wanted.
He said the processing of these Ghanaians to be brought back home has been smooth and mostly importantly supervised by the South African Home Affairs office, adding that the evidence is that no one has been viewed in that regard.
“So this claim by some propagandists that our citizens were law breakers, people who are contributing to the insecurities and instability in South Africa, the evidence does not support it.
They had their security officers there checking with their computers and Databases. Not a single Ghanaian. So clearly Ghana is not responsible for any avalanche of illegality going on in South Africa.”
The first batch of 297 citizens were evacuated in a government chartered Ethiopian aircraft about two weeks ago. The second batch who will be in a two aircrafts numbering over 600 are set to arrive in Ghana this weekend, between Saturday and Sunday.
The government through the Minister has assured that, it will evacuate all it citizens as long as they express the desire to return home. Ghana is the first to have taken this decision as other countries look on appearing unconcerned.
But Ghana has also assured that, it will using both diplomatic and legal means to pursue compensations for affected citizens who had to abandoned their businesses and run back home for the fear of being attacked or killed.
By Gifty Boateng