Immigration officers abandon Ghana’s entry points over unpaid GHC100 stipends
- Immigration officers with Operation Calm Life have left the operation
- This is because of unpaid stipends
- They say there are also moves to cut the stipends by 50%
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Officers of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) manning the country’s entry points as part of Operation Calm Life have withdrawn from the operation, YEN.com.gh has gathered.
Source: Facebook
The officers were deployed to areas such as Elubo, Akanu, Laklebi, Saboba, and Hamile as part of the government’s effort to clamp down on criminal activities along the country’s entry points.
They withdrew from Operation Calm Life in protest of the government’s moves to cut their daily stipends by a whopping 50%, Starrfm.com.gh reported.
“There is no accommodation, there is no food, so we have to look for our own accommodation, feed ourselves based on what they give us, based on the ration [money] they give us,” one of the officers told Starr News on condition of anonymity.
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According to the officer, it has been three months since the government paid their daily stipends of GHC100.
“It’s supposed to be a daily amount and it was being calculated and every two weeks, that was what we started with,” the officer stated.
Operation Calm Life was to last for two months but it is in its eleventh month.
“From what we are picking, the monies have been slashed and they have not briefed us, but that is what we learnt. As it stands now, it has been slashed to half, what they were giving us if they were coming to slash at the normal circumstances, they should come to sit with us, brief us that ‘this is what we were talking and now from this going, this is how we are going to do it now.’ And there should be options if you are not happy with it, how do you go about it, something of that sort hasn’t happened,” the officer stated.
Meanwhile, the Comptroller General of the GIS expressed grave worry over what he described as terribly poor retirement conditions of officers of the GIS in an earlier YEN.com.gh reportage.
"If you look at all the agencies under Interior Ministry especially the security agencies, our pension benefit is nothing to write home about,” Kwame Asuah protested.
“You retire in such a manner that you go home, if you don’t take care, I don’t know what will happen to you,” he bemoaned.
Speaking on Friday, May 7, 2021, in Koforidua during the ceremony of the Management and Regional Commanders Retreat, Kwame Asuah Takyi called for the amendment of the Immigration Service Act 908 to address what he says is a “very…very bad pension benefits.”
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Source: YEN.com.gh
