The Gambia Immigration Department (GID) under the leadership of its new director general, Bai Ebrima Mboob, will be hosting the country's first-ever sub-regional conference of Heads of Immigration in Banjul.
This year's forum, which will be the eight annual heads of immigration forum, will be held from the 23rd to 24th of September 2024. It is expected to be attended by 12 heads of immigration departments within the region.
The forum, officials said, is meant to bring heads of immigration together in one forum with a view to collectively discuss solutions and strategies of emerging mobility and migration challenges within the sub-region.
The theme for this year's event is: 'Accelerating the Development of ECOWAS National Biometric Identity Cards and the Abolition of the 90-day stay Limits'. GID officials are bracing for this year's event with a view to making it a successful one.
Speaking at a press briefing held at the GID headquarters in Banjul, the director general of the country's Immigration, Ebrima Mboob, underscored the significance of this year's forum, saying: "The upcoming event is a ECOWAS event for immigration border officials. However, the country is hosting the event for the first-time."
DG Mboob thanked President Adama Barrow and other stakeholder institutions for their continued support in making this year's event a memorable one.
He recalled that in 2011, there was an agreement by ECOWAS Heads of State for the adoption of the biometric national identity card, adding: "For this reason, The Gambia has been implementing this as a means of supporting security within the sub-region or perhaps a common adopted procedure in terms of documentation within the sub-region."
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Since 2011, he said, countries have begun to set-up biometric centers with a view to ensuring that it becomes a priority within the ECOWAS member states.
Commenting on the significance of these documents, he said, "They provide bio-information of who you are and create big security of who you are."
The sub-region, he continued, has been facing challenges of smuggling, trafficking in-person, trans-organised crimes and kidnapping among others.
"It is therefore incumbent upon ECOWAS to review the protocol of entry and residential and establishment. We are all a community and Africa should be united. However, we can't be united when there are borders between us. Therefore, it's important we come out with measures that will keep us together."
"During the forum, we will be discussing the issue of immigration relating to entry, establishment of citizens in another country among others," he postulated.
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