Border Officials in the Upper East Region are appealing for adequate logistics and personal protective equipment (PPEs) to help them police the unapproved routes within the region to avert the importation and spread of COVID-19.
President Nana Akufo-Addo ordered the closure of the country’s borders as part of a strategic measure to prevent and contain the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
But border officials at Pulmakom, Kulungugu and Mognori say the country stands the risk of COVID-19 imported cases if adequate logistics are not provided to fight recalcitrant immigrants using the unapproved routes.
This was disclosed when the six Municipal and District Assemblies Chief Executives of the KUSAUG traditional area visited the three main borders to assess the enforcement of President Akufo-Addo’s directive after the closure of the country’s borders.
It was also to ascertain the challenges confronting border officials and how they can be better resolved.
But in their bid to ensure that all immigrants comply with the ban on movement into and out of the country through the borders, immigration officers at the three borders say, they are logistically constrained.
Pulmakom Immigration Commander, Assistant Superintendent Awudu Ibrahim Bawa, said “We have a lot of unapproved routes from Garu and Tempane and we cannot cover all these unapproved routes. We have a lot of logistical challenges. Sometimes you drop an officer at a point and he has no motorbike meanwhile he will see certain things that he needs to act on but there is nothing he can use to chase them. So, we are constrained logistically. Our motorbikes are grounded and we have only one pick-up and so as to when they call us then we respond and this affects effective policing of our borders. Also, we don’t have an isolation centre to quarantine any illegal immigrant caught using the unapproved routes, so we are begging for that to be done for us.”
The Immigration Commander of Kulungugu, Superintendent Kwebena Ajei stated that “We don’t have enough motorbikes to patrol the many unapproved routes and the vehicles coming from Niger into Ghana. We don’t have the means to quarantine them and that is a worry that needs urgent redress.”
District Chief Executive for Garu and leader of the team, Emmanuel Asore Avoka commended the border officials for the dedication and assured that government will immediately consider their challenges for redress.
‘We will get back to the drawing board and see if we can quickly work on some of the challenges you have raised so we step up in the area of logistics. Some of the requests you have placed before us would be addressed because the Ministry of Local government and Rural Development has released a lot of items that can assist us (MDCEs) to assist you (Border officials) to be able to keep our border tight and that we don’t have people coming into Ghana from Burkina Faso and Togo through the unapproved routes.”
Per Citi News checks, the borders have no isolation centres for quarantine and most of the border officials did not have personal protective equipment such as nose mask and hand gloves.
Apart from the Kulungugu and Mognori borders that have port health offices, that of Pulmakom border has no such critical facilities for the screening of immigrants.
