GIS, others receive forgery detecting equipment

Accra, Sept. 29, GNA - Selected institutions that deals with documentation and identification for official purposes on Tuesday received fraud detection equipment worth over 346,000 Ghana cedis to help them detect forged documents.

In addition, over 200 staff from the institutions have been trained in finger print techniques, migration investigations, basic Information Technology skills and standard operating procedures in the issuance of documents.

The institutions are; Ghana Immigration Service, Birth and Deaths Registry, Passport Office, Document Verification Fraud Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department and the Registry on Marriages. The presentation forms part of a programme dubbed "AENEAS," that sought to reduce the incidence of fraudulent documents for official purposes.

The items included desktop computers, desktop printers, toner for printers, desktop scanners, USB hard disk, waldman box, retro-check, folding magnifiers, handheld UV lamps and five volumes of atlas passports.

The programme is jointly sponsored by the European Union, British High Commission, Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Spanish Embassy. Ms. Elizabeth Adjei, Director of Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), said there was the need to intensify collaboration between the various agencies as well as increasing commitment at the agency level to ensure objectives of AENEAS programme were achieved and sustained. She hinted that GIS would soon establish a national document expert laboratory to coordinate activities of all the agencies involved in the project to ensure total elimination of documentation fraud in the country.

Ms. Adjei expressed personal commitment to ensure that GIS protected the integrity of all documents from the country. Ms. Daria Fane, representative of European Union, said the programme would help prevent illegal migration flow. Mr. Amar Deep Hari, Chief Executive Officer of IPMC, a computer training institute, said automation was big challenge facing many organizations. He explained that automation was the inability to use computer programmes effectively and pointed out that many organizations in Ghana now had Information Technology (IT) equipment but were not able to use the equipment to facilitate their work. "The first step in automation is IT training," he said and encouraged beneficiaries of the programme to practice what they had learnt to ensure maximum impact. 29 Sept. 09