By Ndey Sowe
A special United State Security expert yesterday completed training 60 Gambia immigration officials on document security.
The training is aimed at equipping security personnel on how to handle travelling documents, and tackle travelling challenges in the various entry points within the country.
Justin Diaz, special agent at the Regional Security Office of The United States Embassy Dakar, Senegal has reaffirmed the US government’s continued commitment in building the capacity of Gambian security officers in all aspect with a view to be able to confronting the security challenges in the country”.
The US special agent was speaking at the closing of the two day capacity building training for 60 officers of The Gambia Immigration Department (GID) held at its headquarter in Banjul on the 2nd and 3rd October, 2018. The training is organized by the US Embassy in Banjul in collaboration with the GID.
The training, Justin went on “was mean among other things to trains immigration officers on document verification ranging from passports, ID cards among others,” which he said will enable them detect some of the fraudulent activities going on within strategic border location of the country.
“Our job from the US security office is to assist government to be more secure through helping their security personnel”, adding that they build their capacity in areas that are of big importance to them in order to monitor people entering in the country.
“We expect the trainee after the training to go back to their respective units and train their colleague’s on the knowledge gain from the training in order to be able to verify documents of people entering in the country at all local border post,” he noted.
He described the training as a success, saying that they have conducted such kind of trainings in various countries were they have their embassies. The participants, in their training on passport verification used Senegalese passports, US passports among others.
The spokesperson of the GID, Spt. Mamanding S. Dibba, spoke on the significance of the training, while urging the participants to live up to expectation and disseminate the knowledge to their colleagues. The capacity building training, he said, is very critical to the operation of the GID particularly in the area of dealing with travellers and travelling documents.
“Capacitating our officers on how to understand and distinguish fraudulent documents from genuine ones is significant to our work especially at the borders and other entry points”.
The GID Spokesperson said that “The training will equip them with the requisite knowledge on the various documents.”
Kaddy Gibba and Sarjo Darboe both participants dwelled on the significance of the training. The training, they went on, will go a long way in complementing their efforts and will also address some of their top challenges that they have been encountering particularly within the border on documentation. They thanked the US Embassy in Banjul for helping them and expect more training to come a head.
