Mutiny Looms In Immigration

Unassailable reports reaching DAYBREAK indicate that unless the Government intervened in addressing salary headaches within the Immigration Service, particularly that involving a section of the Service, the otherwise quiet interior agency of the nation will go up in flames of mutiny.

DAYBREAK has gathered that Intake 21 of the Service, who entered as Assistant Immigration Officer II, are yet to be paid two years after they had graduated at the Immigration Training Academy based at Assin Fosu in the Central Region.

The story comes in the wake of several other cases of agitation over salary affecting several Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government, including CLOSAG, NAGRAT, GNAT and nurses and teachers across the country.

Members of Intake 21, who number 324, were supposed, after the training, to have been hooked to an enhanced salary structure currently being enjoyed by members of the security services. However, as they waited with baited breath for the salary, all they received from their superiors and administrative staff were assurances that never came.

“Anytime we raised issues about the unpaid salary, we are put down with vague statements like the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department is working on it,” one of the affected officers told DAYBREAK.

Unfortunately, the situation has persisted for two years whilst the officers agonizingly carry out their duties on the field and at administrative echelons with little hope that they will get a listening ear before the elections.

Like the Narcotics Control Board, the Ghana Immigration Service is one of the orphaned agencies in spite of the delicate role they play in watching over the nation’s borders.