The Government of Ghana has commissioned the Document Fraud Office (DFO) for the Ashanti Regional Command of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), with a call on Ghanaians to report fraud related activities to the security agencies.
Located at the Jubilee Park of Kumasi, the DFO, which came into fruition by the auspices of the Denmark government, would serve the middle belt and northern sector of Ghana.
The DFO is aimed to clamp down on fraud documents of immigrants and other related crimes.
It would be manned by personnel of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) of the GIS, with collaboration from other security agencies to assist the GIS to curb documents of immigrants and other related crimes.
Commissioning the DFO in Kumasi, Naana Eyiah Quansah, Deputy Minister for Interior, disclosed that there had been an upsurge in the usage of fraudulent documents across various sectors of the economy, including the Immigration Service.
“It must be emphasised that the use of fraudulent documents cut across so many fields, including migration.
In this case, prospective travelers manage to acquire fraudulent passports, among others, to enable them travel across borders for various reasons.”
Naana Quansah, however, expressed optimism that, with the coming on stream of the Kumasi DFO, fraud document related crimes would be curbed.
“It is hoped that users of fraudulent documents would be brought down to the barest minimum, and [the] perpetrators behind this crime would be brought to book.”
She implored Ghanaians to report fraud related cases to the security agencies.
“I would like to express the important roles of institutions and individuals reporting incidences of fraud to [the] law enforcements agencies.”
According to Eyiah Quansah, reporting of such cases was not the sole responsibility of the state, rather all and sundry.
She urged: “It is the interest of not only the government bodies, but also in the interest of the business community, private organisations, and the general society to prevent and combat fraud and related crimes.
“The renovation of the ICMDP presents an important and collaborating step in this process, and I know it will produce the necessary service, augment in the work of the documents expertise centre office in Accra that serves the entire country and some parts of West Africa.”
She expressed appreciation to the Government of Denmark for the various roles it played in the completion of the DFO.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, explained that the DFO office would shorten the period for the examination and detection of fraudulent document since in the years gone by, documents would have to be taken to Accra for verification and examination.
Osei-Mensah continued that the DFO was going to augment the work of the Regional Security Council to a greater extent a bit easier, because sometimes some foreigners were arrested and they were sent to the GIS office in Kumasi, the documents would have to be taken to Accra for verification and examination, which takes some time.
The Comptroller-General of Ghana Immigration Service, Mr. Kwame Asuah Takyi, disclosed that there had been an uptick in cases involving verification and authenticity of documents, hence, the establishment of the DFO.
“Following the increase in cases of verification or authentication of documents from security and non-security agencies at the Document Fraud Expertise Centre in Accra, there was the need to revamp the Documents Fraud Office (DFO) in Kumasi, to improve service delivery.”
Comptroller-General Asuah Takyi noted that the International Centre for Migration and Policy Development (ICMPD), which was being implemented by the ISMPD under the Strengthening Border and Migration Management in Ghana (SMMIG) project, facilitated the conducts of the gabs and needs assessment of the DFO document in Kumasi, which led to the renovation of the office and the provision of document verification equipment, as well as office equipment.
According to him, combating fraud involved fraudulent acquisition of passport, visas, permits and other document related crime, requires an integrated approach that was the whole government and non-government and societal approach.
The GIS Comptroller-General called for a collaborated approach between the security and non security agencies.
“As the Service is equipping itself with the technical tools available and sufficient capacity, there must also be an integrated approach, especially between the security agencies, non-security agencies, and individuals in the society.”
Giving a gist about the nature of immigration cases, which are arraigned before the courts, Kwame Takyi revealed that it had been evidenced for years that most of the immigration cases forwarded to the law courts by the Service for prosecution were document fraud, false declaration among others.
He said: “Fraudulent acquisition of passports, visas, birth certificates and permits, do not respect the boundaries of countries.”
This, he said, was that “collaboration between us remained critical for tackling this problem effectively. We continue to urge more corporate corporation with the service.”
He admonished all and sundry to invest in combating fraud, support for good governance and improving the rule of law.
