The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) on Monday inaugurated a new Unit to ensure discipline and adherence to standards among its personnel.

The Unit, known as the Immigration Professional Standards and Ethics Unit (IPSEU), is made of 42 Officers drawn from both senior and junior ranks of the Service.

A statement issued to the Ghana News Agency in Accra and signed by Mr. Kwame Asuah Takyi, Comptroller-General of Immigration (CGI), explained that the establishment of the unit was necessitated by the increase in staff strength and the need to maintain paramilitary standards in the service.

He said the IPSEU was mandated to monitor, enforce and improve on the standards of professionalism among its personnel in the discharge of their duties to the country, especially its clients.

The statement said Mr Takyi stated at the inauguration ceremony of IPSEU, and explained that, “the maintenance or exhibition of high standards by Officers is very important in discharging the mandate and attainment of the vision of the GIS”.

He admonished all Officers of the Service to eschew all forms of unprofessionalism and unlawful behaviours that would warrant them being subjected to the Disciplinary Code of the Service.

He stated that management of the Service would ensure that those who flouted the Service Disciplinary Code would be dealt with in accordance with the Service Regulations, noting, “a society that does not allow its rules and regulations to work cannot stand the test of time”.

Mr. Takyi called on Officers to place integrity of the profession, their allegiance to the State and the interest of clients above their interests. “Integrity, competence and respect should be hallmark of Officers of the Service”.

He also pledged his support to the success of IPSEU and entreated its personnel to ensure that Officers of the Service acted professionally at all times so as not to tarnish the hard-won reputation of the Service.

Mr Takyi implored personnel of the Unit to display high sense of discipline that would give credence to their selection as pioneers of IPSEU, adding that, they were expected to live above reproach.

In his remarks, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Kojo Bannerman, Commanding Officer of the Military Police Unit of the Ghana Armed Forces, tasked personnel of IPSEU to be custodians of discipline in the GIS and to exhibit high sense of accountability and loyalty and entreated them to ‘walk the talk’ and put into use what they had learnt.

The establishment of the Professional Standards and Ethics Unit is in fulfilment of provisions contained in the Immigration Service Act of 2016, ACT 908 and its Regulations.