Immigration Officers in KIA Command embark on health walk

Ghana Immigration Officers at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) Command undertook a two-hour health walk to check their fitness. They started the walk from Ayi Mensah Toll Booth and climbed through the Aburi Mountain and ended at a park at Kataase in the Eastern region, where they went through vigorous exercise and aerobics to keep themselves in shape.

Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, Madam Edith Penelope Arhin, Commander of KIA said, the health walk was to help the officers improve their physical fitness to increase productivity.

She said their job was the first point of contact as they attended to both passengers leaving the country or coming in and " it is in place that the officer are fit and alert to serve their clients.

"Aside that, we have also observed that of late, majority of them come with sick leave and excuse duties and decided to organise the walk periodically to let them exercise their bodies, keep them fit, as well as increase productivity" she said.

The Commander said per the nature of their work, they needed sound health to render their mandate, thus, processing of passengers leaving the country and those coming in.

ACI Penelope Arhin said the exercise would be rotated until every shift had its turn to keep everybody in good shape.

She announced that the Service would roll up a number of initiatives to improve visibility of Immigration Officers throughout the country's borders.

She said that became necessary because most passengers could not differentiate the Immigration Officer from other border officials and sometimes wrongly accused them of distortions.

She noted that the roll-up would be in the form of a plague with pictures of officers in the various Immigration uniforms to differentiate them from other border officials.

That, she said would help erode the public misconception about the Service. On improving communication among the officers and management, she said the Service would introduce suggestion boxes to enable them give constructive criticisms and solutions to improve on their work.

The officers later had a sponsored massage therapy and some also had the opportunity to interact and buy Life Assurance Policy from Star Life assurance Company officials, who were there to sell their products.