The former Member of Parliament for Asunafo South George Boakye said Wednesday that he is prepared to beg the UK High Commission in Ghana to suspend its decision to bar him from acquiring a UK visa for 10 years.
According to the High Commission, Mr. Boakye and three of his colleagues used their diplomatic passports to acquire visas for persons travelling to the UK and never returned.
Mr. Boakye on September 11, 2012, according to the UK High Commissioner, Jon Benjamin in a letter dated January 20, 2017 to the speaker of Parliament Mike Oquaye applied for visas for himself and his 37-year-old daughter, Joyce Boakye to visit a friend in London for 17 days which were granted September 14, 2012.
The former lawmaker on January 17, 2013 travelled to the UK with his daughter but the latter did not leave the UK with her father remaining until January 6, 2017. In other words she lived in the UK for over three years illegally—an action the High Commission considers unacceptable and criminal in some cases.
As a result, “Mr Boakye is highly unlikely to be issued any further visas to visit the UK in the next ten years for his role in facilitating his daughter’s travel to the UK, including should he be re-elected to Parliament in a subsequent election,” Mr. Benjamin’s letter to the speaker read in parts.
Reacting to the development Wednesday on Morning Starr, the embattled legislator admitted of breaching regulations governing UK Visa application and that he accepts the punitive measures being taken against him.
“When your son or daughter goes out and whatever he or she does and there is a credit to it you’ll take and in same vein when it is the other way you have to take it,” he stated, adding that he has plans to visit the High Commission and plead for clemency amidst threat to bar him from acquiring UK Visa for the next 10 years.
