The Ghana Union of Traders' Association (GUTA) has accused the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) of aiding foreigners in the country to commit crime.

Speaking on the issue, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of GUTA  Mr. David Kwadwo Amoateng made the statement adding that it is the duty of the GIS to ensure all foreigners who are residents in Ghana for many years have residence and work permits accordingly; hence, failure to ensure this responsibility is carried should be blamed on their door step.

Mr Amoateng said “it is the responsibility of the Immigration Service to ensure the foreigners are here with legal documents to do legal businesses, but these Immigration people are sponsoring these illegalities in the country”.

“Let me tell you, any foreigner in this country who is committing any crime is being sponsored by the Immigration Service. If you are a resident foreigner in Ghana, I am talking about foreigners who engage in robbery, rape, and kidnapping, those foreigners, Immigration Service is the one sponsoring them,” he added.

Speaking further, he said “if you are a foreigner and you come to this country, you are supposed to pay for residence permit and a work permit if you intend to stay in the country for many years, but last year October, we arrested some people who have stayed in Ghana for 28 years and 32 years, others 14 years and the least among them was 6 years without residence and work permits”.

He however fumed that as a result of the ineptness of the Immigration Service to certify that the foreigners renew their work and residence permits, they now have the financial muscles to rent shops to do retail businesses.

“And so if every year those residence permits and work permits are renewable and maybe it costs Ghc100 but then some people have stayed in this country for 32 years, and our Immigration Service is sitting idle without going to ensure all these people have renewed their stay; once such monies are not collected, these foreigners will add those monies to their capitals to rent stores and kick Ghanaians out of the petty retail businesses,” he asserted.

He therefore warned that foreigners have no rights to engage in petty retail business, declining that their warning is not limited to the Nigerians alone but every foreigner enterprising in retail business.

“No foreigner has any right to engage in petty retail business and so I will decline those invitations of mentioning Nigerians alone in this case. We don’t have anything against Nigerians. As I speak to you know, Charter House belongs to a Nigerian, Zenith Bank is owned by Nigerians, Access Bank as well and has anyone attacked these institutions? This is because they are operating within the law of the country,” he warned.

He called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to fire all his Commanders as they are aware of all the foreign shops engaging in petty retail businesses and yet doing nothing to put an end to their illegal businesses.

“We had an exercise in Kumasi with the security authority to identify all the shops of foreigners and they realised that many of them had violated the law and we are wondering why all these people were left off the hook when we returned from Kumasi,” he explained.

“We did the same thing at tip-toe lane and in that exercise too, they arrested 320 foreigners who violated the law by renting stores and putting up container structures to engage in petty retail businesses, but nothing has changed,” he stressed.