and cultural changes and this highlights the need for collective approach to managing it.
He mentioned that recent developments has shown that migration management is shaping the globalization dialogue and the government of Ghana fully recognizes and shares the commitment of the International Community to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits the host and the migrants.
In this vain, the support of GIS personnel is crucial in the fight against irregular migration and also to ensure that these principles are adhered to, he stressed.
Hon. Woyongo called on GIS to collaborate and cooperate with all sector security agencies, share information, intelligence and resource for effective management of the borders.
The Minister wished the gathering fruitful deliberations and commended them for the initiative.
The Chairman of the GIS Board, Hon. Cletus Avoka, was however quick to add that considering the important role played by the GIS as front liners, the personnel need to be motivated and the needed logistics put in place to enable them perform their constitutional mandate with the expected effectiveness and efficiency especially in this 21 centaury where terrorism, trans-national crimes, human trafficking and smuggling has become the order of the day.
The Chairman assured the Service that the Board would work hard to improve the welfare of the staff, create a favorable environment and make sure that the GIS get’s its share of the national cake and cease being ‘ the poor cousin of the other security agencies in the country’.
He restated that the Board would work closely with the Government through the Ministry of the Interior to give priority to the resourcing of the Service to boost the morale.
The Director of GIS, COP (Dr.) Peter A. Wiredu, on his part appealed to the government to speed up the process leading to the approval for the Service to wield weapons to ensure effective patrolling of the borders and also to safe guard officer’s especially the border Patrol Personnel.
Dr. Wiredu mentioned that the lack of relevant border management technologies, communication equipment, all –terrain vehicles, motorbikes, patrol routes, arms and lack of proper border infrastructure has seriously undermined the operational effectiveness of the GIS.
Despite all these challenges, the Service is doing all it can to curb the activities of criminally minded elements.
He further indicated that through collaboration with other security services, there has been drastic reduction of foreigners involved in illegal small scale mining.
There were brief presentations from the three deputies Directors of GIS [Operations, Legal and Finance & Administration] as well as from the 11 Regional Commanders.
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