OPEN OUR BORDERS NOW, appealed to our President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to reopen our land borders to Togo, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.
Our President’s answered that he has taken notice of the protests calling for the opening of the land borders but says “until we are satisfied that opening of land borders will not pose a major challenge, for the time being, they’ll remain closed.”
The President added that his reason for the closure of the land borders whilst opening the air route, is that the health checks are easier to control at the airport.
So far I 100% agree with our President and his intentions are well respected by me and many others.
But Mr. President, your safety measures and reasons not to reopen the land borders are in my opinion based upon wrong or no information or at least honest information by the people/advisors around you.
What I see is that you have surrounded yourself with people of your class, education and lifestyle who don’t have a clue about the current situation at our borders.
This is not a typical Ghanaian or African problem but something I see and hear from leaders all around the world: THEY ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY ON THE GROUND.
Mr. President allow me give you the ‘true reality’ on the ground on our border closure for Covid19 safety reasons.
GHANA’S BORDERS ARE AND HAVE BEEN OPEN FOR OVER A YEAR ALREADY!
My wife is an Ewe, with a Togolese father and a Ghanaian mother. Her relatives and many other people have been crossing the border all the time. Some unofficial crossing are even very close to Aflao/Lome border.
Friends and people we know have been traveling in and out for more than a year.
I run a guesthouse in Accra and I have been receiving guests from Nigeria, Togo, Benin and Cameroon regularly since I reopened.
I asked a friend who works a tour guide how he is crossing, his answers were not surprising:
People who normally cross without a passport and gave 1 cedi, 1 cedi now pay 5 cedi to the same, official border control staff and cross just like before. If he need to cross himself he can’t cross with his car so officials even tell him where to park safely and charge for guarding his vehicle (at a price) until he returns. My wife asked him: “do white people also cross”? he answered yes but they try to charge too oo much so he doesn’t like crossing with white people.”
The story at the Elubo border is even worse. There are about three checkpoints before reaching Elubo. The first check point, the officers charge non-Ghanaian travelers about Ghc 20. The second checkpoint, the police officers charge about Ghc 10. At the river separating Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, crossing canoe, the town Boys who allegedly work for immigration and police, immigration and soldiers, charge between 10,000 cfa and 15,000 to cross people on the river to Cote d’Ivoire and over to Ghana.
The main Elubo and Cote d’Ivoire border is opened for illegal passage and the immigration, and Ghana Health Service staff there and their counterpart on the Cote d’Ivoire side, charge not less than 15,000 cfa. Even the Ghana Health Service staff charge illegal travelers Covid-19 vaccination fee. I am saying this because a friend of mine has traveled to Cote d’Ivoire over three times this year alone and he has crossed both the river and passed through the main land border at Elubo with the full knowledge of Immigration officers and soldiers who demanded payment from him. He told me how on one of his trips, a female police officer stationed at the river crossing point begged him to increase their payment from Ghc 30 to Ghc 50.
Now, once the passengers cross over to Cote d’Ivoire, the first checkpoint on the Ivoren side, travelers are made to pay 3,000 cfa, and before reaching Abidjan, there are additional three checkpoints where they are made to pay 1,000 cfa at each checkpoint.
So why keep the borders legally closed but illegally open and profiting corrupt security officers?
Mr. President, people around you are sleeping or misinforming you willingly or unwillingly.
My humble advice:
Open Ghana’s land borders, return crossing into Ghana official and start checking all Covid19 measures on every person entering Ghana because at this moment the border closure is rather creating a very unsafe Covid19 situation because there are no checks at all. The Ghana Health Service officials at the land borders only take money illegally from travelers in the name of Covid-19 vaccination which they don’t administer.
That way, we can continue our exports and imports and safely work on the battle against Covid19. Because its sytill out there.
Note: the above article was originally authored by Nico van Staalduinen, for African Entertainment
