Comptroller-General Kwame Asuah Takyi
The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has reacted to recent reports about the security agency, describing them as not only misleading but outright misinformation.
Some aspects of the reports on TV3 were personality attacks on the Comptroller-General of Immigration, Mr. Kwame Asuah Takyi, according to the statement.
The reports, the statement went on, “are baseless, false and without substance. There is no tension within the Service and all officers are happily at work.
“This negative reportage is the handiwork of a few senior officers to tarnish the hard-won reputation of the Comptroller-General who through dint of hard work with Government support has turned around the fortunes of the Service,” the statement said.
Promotion
On promotion, the statement explained that it is purely administrative and internal issue, which follows a chain of command.
“However, to clear the misinformation being churned out by TV3 through its presenter on the Johnnie’s Bites show, we will like to explain the promotion of Chief Supt Edwin Adjetey Doku, which has taken centre stage in the ongoing discourse.
“Chief Supt Edwin Adjetey Doku was recalled from interdiction along with three others after staying home for five years without trial. Their recall was approved by the Governing Council of the GIS and were to be reinstated to ranks just as their colleagues.
“Unfortunately and quite strangely, his name was omitted from the list of officers to be reinstated by the then Head of the Human Resource Department, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration (ACI) Kojo Oppong Yeboah.”
He, therefore, petitioned the Comptroller-General on the unfair treatment.
The Appointments and Promotions Committee (APAC) which worked on the petition “approved of his petition on the basis of fairness and equity. His promotion to Chief Superintendent was to restore him to the level of his mates as was done for the others. Chief Supt Edwin Adjetey Doku was therefore never promoted twice as is being speculated.”
The promotion letter being shown on TV3 as a double promotion in one day is never true and it was a wrong letter that was issued but immediately withdrawn when the anomaly was detected and a new one issued, the statement pointed out, adding that “Chief Supt Edwin Adjetey Doku’s wife is not a relation of the Comptroller-General.
Medical Allowance
On the payment of medical allowance, the statement explained that it was suspended by management due to the increasing number of officers since “this was paid from our own internally generated funds.”
However, when officers submit medical refunds, the Service duly pay these refunds which is far in excess of the GH¢300.00 medical allowance, the statement disclosed.
“Again, the Service in cases of serious medical conditions take up the financial cost of sending officers for overseas medical treatment,” it added.
GIS Clinic
The GIS used to rely on the Police and 37 Military Hospitals for medical screening of recruits, but “in a bid to grow the Service entered into an agreement with the St Johns Medical Center to set up the GIS Clinic with the approval of the Governing Council of the Service.”
Some officers, the statement added, are fighting the establishment of the GIS “because it was going to deny them of their ill-gotten wealth through the issuance of fake medical certificates to foreign nationals.
“Currently, the GIS has recruited Nurses, Medical Assistants and Laboratory Technicians who are Immigration Officers to work at the GIS Clinic here at the National Headquarters and also our clinics at Assin Foso and Tepa Training Schools,” the statement disclosed.
The projection is that very soon we will recruit our own medical doctors and turn the clinic into a full-fledged hospital to be replicated in our Regional Commands, the statement went on.
On the stoppage of regional commanders issuing residence permits, the GIS explained that this was being abused. Regardless of the stoppage, however, the commanders still undertake certain functions such as the renewal of residence permits among others.
By A.R. Gomda