The Comptroller-General, Nigerian Immigration Service, Mr. David Parradang, has urged immigration officers to rid all passport offices of touts and shun corruption. Parradang added that officers who had cases of indiscipline would not be promoted. The CG stated this during his first visit to passport offices in Lagos on Friday. Parradang, who became the CG in June 2013, visited the passport offices at FESTAC, Ikoyi, Alausa and Ikeja areas of the state. While addressing his men, Parradang said touts must be expelled completely from the system. He said, "We are not satisfied with what we hear about passport offices and airports. There are very few people that are spoiling this job. Try to be as transparent as possible. We are not running a secret society. "Do not give our work to touts. Do not patronise touts. I do not want to hear anything about touts. No form of extortion will be accepted. I will never entertain touts here." Parradang said he was going to transfer officers and men in the Ikoyi and FESTAC passport offices to create room for other officers to work in the departments, adding that the FESTAC passport office would be relocated because it was no longer conducive to provide service and security at its present location. The CG promised to make the welfare and training of officers his top priority. "Welfare is paramount on my agenda. It is primary to us. We do not only speak grammar we will actually take action. Government owes you salary and you owe government hard work. I will support anybody that wants to buy a house," he said. The Passport Control Officer, Alausa Passport Office,Mr. Joshua Ajisafe, complained that the new passport office depended solely on one generator saying it was grossly inadequate. He therefore requested for another 150KVA generator to serve as a back up to the one being used. Ajisafe further disclosed that within the last four months of the office being operational, 23,454 applications had been received out of which 21, 404 passports had been issued and a revenue of N205, 222, 500 accrued to government. The PCO, Ikoyi Passport office, Mrs. Modupe Anyalechi, pleaded with the CG to offset its electricity bills of over N2.8m. She said her office had about 4,000 unclaimed passports from July 27, 2007 to date. She also noted that from January 2 to date, about 89,750 had been processed.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 06:59:36 +0000
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