‘Immigration recruits to improve service delivery’

Chief Immigration Officer Hudson Mankhwala has said his department is recruiting 300 immigration officers who will help improve service delivery.

Mankhwala was speaking at the Police Training School in Limbe on Tuesday at the opening of the 9th Immigration Recruit training course for 2012.

“The training of this big number of officers will provide a very useful input that will help us contribute towards the achievement of the government’s over-arching medium-term operational framework.

“Your recruitment will help the department to ably deal with problems of delay in the processing of passports, permits, visas and deal with problem of illegal immigrants that has taken prominence in the country.

“The huge recruitment is also an important milestone towards the implementation of the department annual training plan for 2012/13. This will help us enhance our efforts as we work closely with other security institutions in dealing with cross-border crimes, especially the army, police, National Intelligence Bureau, prisons and other government departments,” said Mankhwala.

He also asked instructors to give equal treatment to all officers during the six-month training.

The 300 recruits is an increase from 2009’s 88. In the 7th intake of 2003, the department recruited 60 officers.