The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has disclosed that 856 stranded Ghanaians abroad have arrived home.
According to the Foreign Affairs Minister at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, 16 June 2020 that the government will gradually fly home all stranded Ghanaians abroad who wish to come home as various countries steadily ease their COVID-19 restrictions.
“So far, 856 Ghanaians have been brought home,” she said.
“The people in Dubai were part of those brought back and another group are on their way as we speak. They are people who were found loitering because of the circumstances of how they live. In such places as Dubai, many of them worked as artisans, maidservants, or domestic workers. They live in dormitories and work in hotels as well and once your employers lose their job, they kick you out and those in such countries were kicked out, so, they were living anyhow,” she disclosed.
The returnees are all in mandatory quarantine.
The minister also explained that the reason the quarantining costs so much is because only a few hotels are willing to host returnees.
“The cost is high because a lot of the hotels are not willing for their places to be used as quarantines. Even if a small hotel agrees, the hotels are small, so, you will have a hotel with five or four rooms, so, logistics will be a problem, security services will have to be put at these quarantines centres and that’s also a problem”.
“So, we are always looking for larger hotels to make it easier for us”, she explained, adding: “We are trying to find ways of cutting down hotel cost. It’s substantial; 600 a day for people who are stranded and may have used up all their monies.”
