Ghana’s government on Tuesday announced its decision to cancel Emergency Visa for all Chinese national traveling to the West African nation.
The previous arrangement allowed for Chinese traveling to Ghana to secure visa on arrival but the policy instituted by the previous administration has now been revoked.
The Emergency Visa Policy was to cater for visitors or business people who travel at short notice from countries where Ghana has no mission or consulate.
Local media Starr FM reported that the revocation was part of Ghana’s fight against illegal mining after Chinese nationals were implicated in the menace.
Some of these Chinese have been prosecuted and many deported for their roles in the illegal mining activities in Ghana or what many local call Galamsey.
Ghana’s Minister of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Kofi Dzamesi, on Tuesday said in Eastern Ghana that the “Chinese nationals come to the country to engage in galamsey, they defecate into our rivers and pollute our river through illegal mining,”
Dzamesi further said that “Now, the Arrival Visa which the former government granted the Chinese have been cancelled. So if you are a Chinese and come to Ghana without Visa, you will go back to your China land.”
“After all, when we go to China, they don’t give us arrival Visa so why should we (country) give them arrival Visa, so, that arrival Visa has been cancelled. Any Chinese who wants to come to Ghana should go to Beijing, Ghana’s Embassy to apply for Visa so that we scrutinize why that person wants to come to Ghana,” the minister said.
Ghana this year secured $15 billion funding from China to invest in its economy.
Source: Africafeeds.com
