Report suspicious activities along border towns – Ghana Immigration Service

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has urged all indigenes of border towns to report suspicious persons involved in movements across unapproved routes along the borders.

Supt Michael Amoako-Atta, Head of Public Affairs of the Ghana Immigration, in an interview with UniversNews, pleaded with all border residents to provide GIS officials with adequate information about suspicious people along the borders.

“We would normally appeal to border residents as it were to cooperate with the officers of the Ghana Immigration Service by providing our offices with the needed information about suspicious movements across some of these unapproved routes,” he stated.

He indicated that this was necessary due to the “porous nature of the borders” which has made maintaining security at the borders very difficult.

“Because of the nature of the borders, they are very porous have people crossing unapproved routes which is a very big challenge to maintaining security at the borders.”

In Ghana, the issue of human trafficking is one that needs urgent attention. According to the statistics of Child trafficking in Ghana, out of 187 territories and countries, Ghana was ranked at Tier 2 in to watch list countries.

However, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and other stakeholders have over the years revamped their efforts to help curb the canker.

In light of this, Mr. Asamoah urged Ghanaians to abstain from aiding illegal pass into the country.

“They themselves should desist from taking people across these routes because they are indigenes of the area, they at times would want to for some reward, so we’ve also appealed to some of them to desist from doing that,” he cautioned.

Mr. Asamoah Atta further stated that the GIS works with property owners to gather data on foreigners that may enter the country.

“We also ask landlords or property owners to, first of all, refer to any immigration service any tenant especially a non-Ghanaian tenant who wants to rent an apartment or a property for us to ascertain his or her immigration status before the landlord will go ahead to rent out that apartment. So, we depend and collaborate with property owners to help us in that direction,” he asserted.

Mr. Asamaoh Atta, however, called for the provision of drones to effectively monitor crossing points.

“For some places where vehicular movement in that place would be difficult. So, we ask for drones or CCTV cameras along some of these crossing points so that we can monitor these crossing points from a command base,” he stated.

Mr. Asamoah is positive that the current strategy of the GIS has helped significantly reduced human trafficking in Ghana.