by Maria BradshaW

A group of Ghanaians who have been stranded in Barbados after the flight they arrived on never returned for them on February 15 as expected, say they like it here and would like to stay for a while.

When a SUNDAY SUN team tracked down about ten of the male visitors, they were found working illegally at a construction site on the outskirts of town.

They were among 149 passengers from Accra, Ghana and Lagos Nigeria, who arrived in Barbados on February 1, on a direct flight which took nine hours.

Some of the passengers went on to St Lucia and Trinidad, while an undisclosed number remained here.

The men, who were nervous, and at first reluctant to speak, because they believed the SUNDAY SUN team to be immigration officers, said they had run out of cash to pay for their accommodation and food and that was why they were working.

The men, who speak English, said they went to the Immigration Department after discovering that the flight had not returned, to ask for an extension to their stay and work permits, but were turned down.

No flight

"We went to the airport and the flight never came and no one could tell us when it will. We went to the Immigration Department to ask for an extension and work permits and they refused us. We decided to find work because we did not have any money," one of the more vocal among the men explained.

The others consented to speak, on the condition that they not give their names, or have their pictures taken.

When the Sunday Sun team found them they were working for a contractor who is building houses for Government.

The men said they would prefer to stay on in Barbados and work for a few months even though they found the cost of living to be high.

"We like Barbados. The people are very friendly. We want to ask Government to give us work permits. We would appreciate that – to get something to do so we would not be a burden to your country.

"We hope that the Government will listen to us," the spokesman pleaded as the others nodded in agreement.

However, they admitted that they were very scared at being found by immigration and imprisoned and said that so far they were forced to leave an apartment where they were living because an immigration officer who lived nearby, "harassed" them for working illegally and threatened their landlord with arrest for harbouring illegal immigrants.

"We are now staying in St Michael," the men said. They said they were all single and had no children.

No experience

But while they are working as labourers, none of them has any experience in the construction field. Two said they were engineers with diplomas, while another two said they were qualified electricians.

"The way we build houses in Ghana is different than how you do it here, but we are willing to learn. We did not get any jobs in Ghana and we are here to experience how this place is. We researched Barbados on the Internet and found that our forefathers came here as slaves and that we all look the same.

"In our country, we have to work. We cannot be idle and we have to go back and tell our people about our experience here so that they can come and find work, too."

A supervisor, who was on the site training the men, said he was impressed with their willingness to learn.

"They are slow because we are now teaching them, but they are willing to learn and they take instructions and are easy to work with. We pay them $60 a day like all the other labourers and if they work overtime they are paid for it.

"I spoke to them and their money is like Guyanese money – $1 200 is $12 000 in their currency. We are just giving them a break because it can happen to anyone," the supervisor said.

The men said the tickets to Barbados cost them US$2000 each. They also said they were in constant contact with their relatives whom they call via cellular phone.