Muntaka explains why Ghana is deporting Chinese illegal miners instead of prosecution

The Minister for Interior, Mubarak Mohammed Muntaka, has caused public outrage over his comment that the government of Ghana will prosecute Ghanaian illegal miners and deport foreign illegal miners without any trial.

According to the Minister for Interior, his outfit and that of the Attorney General have decided not to prosecute foreign illegal miners, but will rather deport them, adding that such people cannot come back to Ghana again.

“I have officially written to the Attorney General. We are not interested in prosecuting people who are destroying our environment and who are defrauding people across the globe. What we want is that, we want to take them back into their country and then we put them on the stop list, never to come back into our country.

“We have resolved, as a new policy, that from two things: In our forest, whether doing galamsey or cutting our trees unlawfully, getting yourself into fraud activities, thus whether using computer or fraud activities. For these two crimes, when we arrest any foreigner, we are not interested in the prosecution, our first option is to take you back to your country and this is something that we are very serious about. And we want you to take this very, very seriously”, he said.

The Minister for Interior indicated that since the onset of the deportation exercise, 107 foreigners have been deported.

“Since we started, we have taken a number of them abroad. I mean 107 abroad. We currently have about 17 that we are processing and what we do is simply get their embassies to foot the bill.We insist that they have to foot the bill and carry them away.”

Addressing personnel at the Ashanti region police command in Kumasi recently, Mohammed Muntaka told the police that they are the first layer of security and that they must always work diligently.

“You are the first point of call, when sometimes you make an arrest or when some people are arrested, they are handed over to you,” he said.

He indicated at the meeting that Ghana is increasingly becoming the preferred destination for many people across the world and that this comes with its own challenges.

“Our country is becoming a preferred destination for many across the world, but as you may know, for those of you in the police service, I should not be telling you this. As many people troop into our country, so will crime also increase.”

The Minister for Interior revealed that last year alone 7,000 Chinese and 8,000 Indians entered the country to do various businesses. He further revealed that a recent exercise his outfit conducted, together with Ghana Immigration Service, revealed that some of the Chinese citizens are indulging in fraud and that this must not be allowed to continue.

Mohammed Muntaka also disclosed to the police that, henceforth, any Asian wanting to visit Ghana must first get security clearance from his country of origin.

“And now, we are re-introducing another thing just to make it easier for you. If you are coming from Asia, you must have a security clearance from your country that you are not a criminal before you can come into our country.

“The immigration is not only going to be looking at your visa. No, you need to come with an accompanied security clearance that you are not a criminal from your country.”

The Minister for Interior, however, regretted that the deportation policy they have adopted is being frustrated by some officers who connived with the foreigners and parade them as Ghanaians.

“We are beginning to see some difficulties, I mean without mentioning specific areas,where particular citizens who are foreigners are arrested and handed over to the police and then, because of whatever reasons they will go and enter it into their system as Ghanaians, just to avoid what we are doing.

“If we find any officer involved in this, I am sorry to say we will make sure that the disciplinary measures within the police administration are admitted to you immediately. We don’t want that, we know that you are making a lot of sacrifices. Please don’t listen to any other person telling you that ‘oooh this person is that, that person is this.”

To MohammedMuntaka, government failure to implement this policy could spell doom for Ghana in the League of Nations.

“If we do not enforce this vigorously, very soon, this peaceful destination that we have that we are so proud of will be lost. Because they come in numbers, the criminals will even outnumber us.”

The post Muntaka explains why Ghana is deporting Chinese illegal miners instead of prosecution appeared first on The Ghanaian Chronicle.

Read Full Story