Minister urges immigration officers to change image

Aflao, Aug 7, GNA - Mr Cletus Avoka, the Minister of the Interior, has appealed to personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) to approach their duties professionally to erase the perception that they extorted money from travellers.

He said the service was an important government agency, strategically positioned as the first point of contact for people entering the country and therefore crucial to national development. Mr Avoka, who is on the first leg of a national tour of immigration duty posts, beginning from the Volta Region, said this when he interacted with personnel of the service at a durbar at Aflao. He said a major challenge globalization posed to Africa was the competition among states for investors and that the conduct of the GIS officer was crucial in attracting investors or repelling them. Mr Avoka said his ministry had complaints about some officers of the service extorting monies from travellers and asked those wayward ones to desist as government would not tolerate such undisciplined men and women.

"The much touted automation and other structures and systems put in place at entry points and in the GIS shall mean nothing if its officers are not professional and selfless," he said. The Minister, who inaugurated the Departure Control Block at Aflao border, toured the Beats and Pillars along the frontier at Aflao and the Segbe, Kpoglo and Akanu entry posts.

At every stop he asked the officers to be civil but fair and firm. Mr Avoka said as public servants they owed allegiance to the government of the day and must not allow political inclinations to interfere with their official duties.

He said government was aware of the problems of the Service, including lack of accommodation and vehicles, promising they would be tackled with time.

Mr Avoka commended them for the great service they were rendering in the control of smuggling, human and drug trafficking. Miss Elizabeth Adjei, Director of the GIS, told the officers to be abreast with the Immigration Service Law to stay in the ambit of the law as they go about their duties.