The board chairman of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Mr Cletus Avoka, has called on officers and men of the service to help the Electoral Commission (EC) to identify foreigners in order not to get their names into the country’s voters register.
This, he said, would enable the country to compile a credible voters register for the 2016 general election.
Mr Avoka, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Zebilla in the Upper East Region, made the call during an interaction with officers and men of the Northern Regional Command of the GIS in Tamale last Friday. Mr Avoka’s call was also in response to recent public outburst of demands of the EC, to compile a credible voters register devoid of foreigners and minors in order to ensure a transparent, free and fair elections.
A forthcoming limited voter registration exercise is to give opportunity to those who have attained age 18 and other Ghanaian nationals who were outside the country and could not register during the last exercise in 2012 to do so to enable them exercise their franchise in the 2016 general election.
The board chairman of the GIS underscored the crucial role that the service had to play in this limited voter registration to exercise geared towards capturing all names of eligible voters to enable them exercise their constitutional rights in the 2016 general election, which had been described as “crucial” to the consolidation of democratic governance in the country.
New Immigration Law
Mr Avoka said the passage of the new immigration law would allow immigration officers manning the borders of the country to wield arms and, therefore, the board would ensure training and the retraining of personnel to enable them to handle weapons effectively.
He urged the officers and men of the service to exhibit high standards of professionalism and discipline in the discharge of their duties as the new law sought to raise the profile and expand the operations of the service.
Mr Avoka encouraged personnel of the service to work hard and aspire to the higher echelons of the service, since the government had desisted from appointing personnel of the other security services as Directors of Immigration.
He therefore called on the rank and file of the service to cooperate and support the new Director of the service, Mr Felix Yaw Sarpong, to succeed in his tenure of office to enable the new succession plan of the service to continue.
The Director of Immigration, Mr Sarpong, charged personnel of the service at the various entry points of the country to eschew extortion and other negative practices that had the tendency to tarnish the image of the service and send bad signals to foreigners and investors.
The Northern Regional Commander of the GIS, Assistant Director of Immigration (ADI), Mr Eric Afari, commended the board for their commitment in helping to transform and reposition the GIS to enhance its operations.
Logistical constraints
Mr Afari said the Northern Command of the GIS is faced with means of transport, accommodation and offices at the various entry points in the region and appealed to the board to help address those challenges, which were hampering the operations of the service in the region, adding that it was the only security agency in the region without a staff bus to convey officers to their various duty posts.
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