Member of Parliament for the Old Tafo constituency and ranking on Parliament’s select committee on sports, Honorable Vincent Ekow Assafuah and the minority caucus have raised grave concerns about the allocation of slots to some state institutions prior to the world cup.
Addressing the media last Wednesday, the legislator questioned the use of public institutions in the arrangement and submission of names to foreign diplomatic missions as part of efforts to secure visas for persons travelling to the world cup.
On the eve of the address, the legislator is captured in a video with an elderly man who narrated to him how his sons paid huge sums of money in the region of $10,000 to Mr Yaw Gyamfi, Chief Operating Officer of the National Sports Authority through one of its members with the promise of traveling with them to the United States for the world cup.
According to the MP, records available to the minority showed that the GTA had been allocated visa slots by the United States and Canadian embassies. He further questioned how many visas were issued out of the 1000 slots allocated by the embassies to the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Maame Efua Houadjeto.
The Old Tafo MP also alleges the submission of a list numbering up to 50 people to the US Embassy, identifying them as media practitioners for activities connected to the world cup.
The Mp further alleges that, only two out of the fifty names submitted by the Ghana Tourism Authority to the US Embassy were identified as journalists by the Fraud Prevention unit after they had conducted their due diligence.
The minority as a result is calling for a full scale investigation into the alleged visa arrangements and the roles played by the various state institutions and all private entities linked to the process.
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