Ranking Member on Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has described the conflicting accounts coming out of Ghana and South Africa over the death of a Ghanaian national in Cape Town as “deeply disturbing”.
According to him, bilateral relations between the two countries are now at their lowest point.
Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse on Thursday, Jinapor said it is unacceptable for two sovereign states to give differing versions of how a Ghanaian citizen died, warning that the discrepancy points to a serious breakdown in trust and communication between the two governments.
“A fact should be a fact. We should not have different accounts as to what is happening in South Africa,” he said. “If it is the case that we have sadly lost one of our compatriots in South Africa, that should be established. We cannot be in a situation where two sovereign governments have conflicting reports about the death of a Ghanaian citizen in South Africa. That is most unfortunate and very disturbing.”
His comments follow the South African government’s public rebuttal, disputing Ghana’s version of events surrounding the killing.
In a statement issued Thursday, South Africa’s Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, Mmamoloko Kubayi, who chairs the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Migration, said Ghana’s account was factually incorrect and not backed by police investigations.
Ghana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had earlier indicated the Ghanaian national was fatally wounded on June 30 during anti-immigrant demonstrations tied to xenophobic attacks in South Africa.
South African authorities, on the other hand, have rejected that account entirely, saying the victim was attacked at his workplace a day earlier, on June 29, in what police suspect was a criminal incident with no link to any demonstrations.
According to the Western Cape Police, the man was shot at a barbershop in Nyanga after unknown assailants stormed the premises, demanded money and opened fire before fleeing. Investigators believe the motive may be extortion-related, and the case remains open.
Reacting to the diplomatic fallout, the former minister for Lands and Natural Resources said the state of relations between the two countries is troubling and should not be allowed to worsen.
“Quite clearly, there is some breakdown of trust between our respective governments, and the bilateral relations between Ghana and South Africa, obviously, are at their lowest,” he said.
He suggested the presidents of Ghana and South Africa take over the matter from the foreign ministers of the two countries.
“I think, most respectfully, that the engagement should be elevated to the level of the presidency — the presidency of Ghana and the presidency of South Africa — to make the effort to normalise this relationship,” he said, adding that the back-and-forth between the two foreign ministers shows there is no longer a functional working relationship between them.
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