Stop shameless begging at Kotoka International Airport

We have a blind spot at our only international airport, Kotoka. The blindness cannot be cured with any modern technological equipment, not even a full body scanner that x-rays passengers, literally stripping them naked while they still wear clothes. The blind spot at Kotoka is the human factor, what appears to have become Kotoka’s culture where staffers shamelessly harass passengers, asking for gifts.

Imagine if at JFK or Heathrow, while some white bloke is searching the body and luggage of a passenger, he or she finds a pack of garri and kobi and says to the majestic African traveller, ‘Hey Charlie, could you leave me some few grains of garri? I’ve heard so much about garri.’ Not a chance! Staffers at best-practice international airports are like hawks, watching out for anything untoward. They consider everyone a potential suspect for one thing or the other, until a passenger proves otherwise and has left their charge.

But at Kotoka, rules can be and are violated with impunity, and by that, compromise the security of the travelling public. Even with countries which have stringent airport security, things do happen. Let alone at Kotoka! Who knows what passes through on a daily basis covered flamboyantly by smiles, corruption, begging for gifts, and a general lousy lackadaisical attitude toward air travel! They forget that an international airport is nothing like the Neoplan Station!

Christmas time appears to be the cocoa season for airport staffers. Missing to pop the big begging question might mean missing a major harvest opportunity! So they ask and ask and ask for gifts. At Christmas time, the begging stench at Kotoka must be fumigated with a lot of frankincense and myrrh.

While a passenger is being frisked, while luggage is bring searched to ensure that the content conform to internationally agreed standards, airport staffers pop the question from underneath their breadth, ‘Would you leave behind your left-over cedis?’ It is very awkward to be asked for a gift when you’re in a compromised position and your armpits and possibly your dross are being checked; when you could be the carrier of the very thing the staffer is supposed to identify and arrest you for.

When a complete stranger to whom you are beholden asks you for a gift, it constitutes bribery. As what point in our national development did we lose our sense of shame?

There are fine staffers at Kotoka; well dressed and professional looking who without inhibition, pour warm smiles and goodbyes and welcomes onto passengers. Without a doubt, this is a free show of Ghanaian hospitality at its best! But then, Kotoka is not a tourism hub. The people who invented the airplane are now terrified of their own invention since it has become the terrorist’s potential weapon of choice to unleash panic, terror, misery and mass death onto passengers.

I reproduce for you, parts of one of the articles published in this column in the past two years about the unethical practice of airport staffers who beg passengers for gifts. At the time, my fear was about the extent to which their misbehaviour can open the floodgates for drugs and other contrabands to pass through our only international airport.

But the Ghanaian connection in the December 25 story of a young Nigerian man attempting to blow up an airplane over the US city of Detroit should be seen as an opportunity to once and for all, clean up the low-cost filthy begging acts at Kotoka.

Now, read the following excerpts from the June 21, 2008 issue of this column. “In the matter of our development agenda on the move into 2nd income status by 2015, various categories of personnel at our international airport – Kotoka, are digging us into a hole. Who is watching out for us?

In this column on December 29, 2007, I reported on the bizarre behaviour of airport staffers who shamelessly ask passengers for Christmas gifts. I had assumed that it was just a Chrismassy thing they did then. Not! On Tuesday morning, June 17, I was dragging my tired old self through Kotoka on a journey via Delta Airlines to New York City. To my utter amazement and annoyance, the begging was as much alive in June as it was in December. I was a very disgusted target of unabashed appeals like: ‘Mama, what would you leave behind for us?’ ‘Please do us some good.’

These incidents began at check-in during a search of my luggage. Then, as if to annoy me further, another batch of buffoons and low-cost staffers at the final departure point bombarded me with more shameless requests for gifts.I could not be nice to them.

I asked each person who asked me for a departure gift: ‘Why should I give you anything? You’re doing your job.’ I scolded them to stop disgracing Ghana with such distasteful behaviours. Frustrated, I queried one of them: ‘Is this how you harass every passenger for gifts?’ He said nothing. He just starred at me, sheepishly. So apparently, this behaviour was for them, a standard operating procedure and they do not expect anyone to raise objections. Passengers are supposed to suck it in, with a smile and hand over gifts to airport staffers. Why?My opinion?

Such behaviours must be stopped by any means necessary. I’ve never witnessed such low-cost behaviour at any international airport. Why in the world should we give space to a bunch of thoroughly greedy and shameless individuals to take passengers hostage at our only international airport?

Besides, considering the struggles we are experiencing with narcotic drugs, such behaviours only serve to weaken our already fragile defences, easing the way for drugs to come in and out freely, at the exchange of gifts (bribes).There are many organizations who give the airport and by extension Ghana a bad name.

Engaging in a blame game through finger pointing at a place like Kotoka or any international airport can get tricky because several stakeholder companies operate side-by-side, making it difficult for the uninitiated onlooker to identify them (with the exception of uniformed personnel).

The many organizational stakeholders include: Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Civil Aviation Authority, Ghana Airports Company, BNI, Narcotics Control Board, the Quarantine folks from the Ministry of Agriculture, airlines, as well as passenger and luggage handling companies. Then in this day and age of outsourcing, there are private security companies.

For instance, the entry into the passenger arrival section is ‘manned’ by private security personnel. I’m reliably informed that Delta Airlines has sourced out passenger profiling and bag searches to private security personnel. However, CEPS officials perform these tasks for all other airlines. Why?

To save airport personnel from themselves and from giving Ghana a bad name, firm measures should be put in place to monitor them closely to prevent them from mortgaging away our beautiful country at the altar of gifts. It might necessitate eavesdropping on them and secretly recording them to tighten up supervision and monitoring. The ultimate goal should be to stop them cold in their ugly tracks at this very crucial frontline and gateway into Ghana.”

dorisdartey@yahoo.com