Mahama Calls for Regulation of Migration

Former President John Dramani Mahama has proposed policies to regulate migration by the country’s professionals to other countries for mutual benefit.

Speaking at a town hall meeting with the youth in the country on August 12, 2024, Mr Mahama who is seeking a comeback to power on the ticket of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) used countries such as South Korea and Philippines as a benchmark.

He conceded that migration is not negative but faulted the nature it takes in the country.

“Migration in itself is not a bad thing but it must be organised migration. And so if you look at countries like Philippines, they have organised migration and so what they do is they give their young people skills training in hospitality, nursing, home care, seafaring and so many other vocations and they organise and export them to other countries.

“You know how much Philippines make each year from organised migration? $30 billion and so migration of professionals is not entirely a bad thing but it must happen in an organised manner. At one point I said people may leave at one point but we must create a situation in which when they leave, it is organised departure.

“For instance if we have nurses and there is an excess of them and we cannot find them employment, there are countries that are prepared to accept them on short-term work abroad, countries and so we sign contract with those countries. If you go to a country like Korea, they are taking what they call foreign workers in different aspects.”

Brain drain has been one of the major challenges faced by the country’s professional class, particularly, the health sector.