Rotate staff on secondment to Passport Office – MFARI to NIB, GIS, other agencies
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration (MFARI) has asked the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and all other security and state agencies, as a matter of policy, to rotate its staff who are on secondment at the Passport office.
The measure, according to the MFARI, is to help eliminate all forms of corruption associated with staff of the Passport Office who are on secondment from other state institutions.
The institutions, apart from the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) and Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), include the Ghana Police Service, the Births and Deaths Registry, Controller and Accountant General, the Ghana Armed Forces, National Fire Service, and the Registrar General’s Department.
In a letter dated 12 January 2023, addressed to the directors of administration of the institutions and signed on behalf of the Minister of Foreign affairs by the director of passports, Mohammed Habib Idris, the MFARI indicated that the request for staff rotation is aim at ensuring that the policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration on seconded staff is respected.
The rotational policy of MFARI is that all seconded staff assigned to the Passport Office are required to serve for a maximum period of six months, after which they are to be replaced by the parent institution which seconded them to the ministry.
“The rotational policy is informed by the realisation that the prolonged stay of seconded officers could create a conducive environment for over-familiarity and malfeasance, with the tendency for unqualified passport applicants to obtain Ghanaian passports.
“The records indicate that some officers from the National Intelligence Bureau have overstayed the term at the passport head office and the passport application centres (PAC3),” the MFARI letter read.
“To eliminate or prevent the incidence of corrupt practices and thereby enhance operations at the various passport offices, your agency is entreated to rotate officers who have been stationed at the Passport Office for more than six months,” the letter by the director of passports, Mohammed Habib Idris, further said.
