State owned telecom AT Ghana is giving free SIM cards loaded with airtime and data to Ghanaians evacuated from xenophobic violence in South Africa, with job offers to follow.
Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa praised the company, formerly AirtelTigo, at a reception for the returnees, saying it has gone beyond connectivity by approaching the government with employment openings and is partnering the state to see citizens fully resettled. He held the gesture up as a model of how companies can back national efforts for people coming home from hardship abroad.
The returnees are part of an evacuation that has brought more than 1,000 Ghanaians home since late May, after attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa destroyed businesses and left many afraid to stay. A first group of 300 landed in Accra aboard a chartered Ethiopian Airlines flight, including 26 people freed from South African prisons over visa offences after intergovernmental talks, and more than 700 others followed in two flights in early June. The government’s package for them covers transport and reintegration allowances, temporary accommodation, counselling and a database matching returnees to jobs, with the National Disaster Management Organisation and the International Organization for Migration supporting arrivals.
AT Ghana chief executive Leo Skarlatos said the SIM cards let returnees call family and reach essential services from the moment they land, the first step in rebuilding a life. “We believe connectivity is more than a service; it is a lifeline,” he said, adding that talks continue on employing some of the returnees and that the company sees standing with citizens in difficulty as part of its identity as a Ghanaian firm.
The telecom’s pledge joins a broader corporate response. Ablakwa has disclosed that Engineers and Planners committed 100 jobs and that Telecel and several other companies answered the government’s appeal, putting the employment openings secured for returnees at about 200 so far.
Beyond resettlement, the government says it is assembling legal processes to pursue compensation for the homes, shops and businesses returnees lost, asking them to document their ownership. President John Dramani Mahama intends to raise the matter at the next African Union midyear coordination meeting.
