The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the principal boarder management agency, has given a strong indication to dealing with the issue of illegal migration with a five-year strategic plan in tandem with international migration laws.
The five-year strategic plan, which will commences in 2018, seeks to consolidate the gains made under the implementation of the 2011-2015 plan, as well as address new issues and the changing dynamics within the GIS work environment.
This five-year strategic plan sets out the vision, mission, priorities and strategic objectives of GIS in managing migration in the national interest to contribute to national security. This document will serve as the blueprint for the GIS’ development and enhancement of its delivery to its stakeholders, to the benefit of Ghanaians.
Speaking at the opening of a two-day final stakeholders’ validation workshop in Accra yesterday, the Comptroller-General of GIS, Kwame Asuah Takyi, said the GIS will take a hard line position against irregular migration into the country.
He said irregular migration has been acknowledged as a significant issue that the international migration communities have not relented on in ensuring safe migration.
The service, he added, will continue to strengthen its institutional capacities in migration management to reinforce the Economic Communities of West African States (ECOWAS) free movement protocols and build synergy with other initiatives implemented by stakeholders.
He stressed that with the development of the service’s first-ever strategic plan, which run 2011 to 2015, the service has positioned itself to effectively tap into the benefits of a ‘moving population’ to ensure that the needed capacities and capabilities are developed to handle the increasingly diverse and complex immigration issues.
He noted that project activities implemented in the previous strategic plan positively impacted on the GIS in many ways including enhancing the capacity of officers.
The new strategic plan, he explained, is made of five components; namely, human resource, law and policies, stakeholder co-operation ICT, equipment and funding.
“It is my expectation that this year’s plan would be aligned to the National Medium-Term Policy framework between 2018 and 2021. A Deputy Commissioner at GIS and chairman of the strategic technical working group for the strategic plan, Eric Asare, in his brief remarks, said the plan will help transform the service in the next five years.
He emphasised that the human resource of GIS, which is part of the five main components that will drive the plan, is essential to anchor the service on strong human resource policies.
The workshop brought together key officials from GIS, government, Ministries Departments and Agencies to critique and make inputs on the strategic plan to enable the production of a robust plan which would be followed by a launch of the finalised plan in April.
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