Ghana Immigration Service Bemoans Rivalry Among Border Agencies

The Ghana Immigration Service says rivalry among border agencies in the discharge of their duties has made security and management daunting tasks.

Mr Yaw Sarkodie Adu, Chief Superintendent, Border Management Department, Ghana Immigration Service, said, “border management and security in Ghana is currently plagued with challenges such as lack of unified approach, collaboration and uncoordinated process leading to rivalry among border agencies.”

Speaking at the Migration Coordination Platform Bi-annual meeting, he said, though the National Border Security Strategy (NBSS) came into being since January 2020, to set clear directions and outline efforts required to achieve desirable results, the challenges continue to persist.

Historically, in Ghana, migration is said to be an integral part of lives and livelihoods and in recent times, changing migration dynamics have presented specific sets of challenges and opportunities for Ghana’s development.

Experts say that the opportunities migration provides for Ghana, if managed and harness efficiently, would contribute to its socio-economic development.

One of the arguments made during the meeting was that though Ghana has several legal and policy frameworks that provide guidance on migration governance and with available personnel, it does not have a robust system at the land, sea, and air borders to provide the much-needed results.

Mr Sarkodie Adu, however, said activities and goals had been set at various stages of the Strategy among border agencies through the signing of a Memoranda of Agreement (MOA) to overcome the challenges.

He called for periodic review every six months to help drive consistent progress for a holistic security of Ghana’s land, air and sea borders.

Prof Mariama Awumbila, at the Center for Migration Studies, University of Ghana, in a presentation, said, there were gaps in data generation, analysis, reports and dissemination on migration issues in Ghana.

Alluding to the lack of coordination and synergy, she said the agencies also had technological deficiencies where there were not enough equipment to deal with the trend of issues.

“Actualizing the migration potential in stimulating national development requires quality database which recognises key migration issues in each agency,” she said.

Prof Awumbila called for an urgent need for accurate, timely and disaggregated data and other forms of information on migrants and the migration process.

Source: NewsGhana