Dedicated Immigration Service needed

Dedicated Immigration Service needed

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Details: Parent Category: Dec 2011; Category: Week ending Dec 10th, 2011; Published on Monday, 19 December 2011 16:38; Hits: 509

Minister of Tourism, Peter David has called for a dedicated Immigration Service to professionally handle the country’s affairs at all ports of entry during the 2011 Tourism Conference at the Grenada Trade Centre on Tuesday.

Female contributor, Eve (Evelyn) Williams, Owner / Designer of Essence Of Paradise said that having traveled extensively throughout the world she is proud that Grenada remains one of the most beautiful unspoilt country in the world, but believes there is a problem with communication.

Williams said Grenada is known as the Isle of Spice and felt that custom officers should display that kind of attitude to visitors.

The proprietor, a Grenadian citizen, recalled one of her re-entries into the country on an early morning flight only to be greeted with these words, “good morning, what you got in the bag?”

She suggested to the tourism minister and the Grenada Board of Tourism that before issues such as investments are dealt with, the problem of customer service and hospitality need to be urgently addressed.

Williams is concerned that customer service is lacking in Grenada and that this could have a negative impact on visitors.

Tourism Minister, David who agreed that there is a dire need in Grenada for a dedicated immigration service, addressed the female businesswoman’s concern citing the need for improvements in customer service.

He said since his ministry has been working with the Immigration Department of the Royal Grenada Police Force there has been a marked improvement in the service provided.

“But I believe that we need a dedicated immigration service because when you train some officers after a couple of months you go down the road and you see them in traffic… or down by the SSU, so you give them training for a year in customer relations and they move them to a place where customer relations is not so important. And so I will urge the immigration service and the government to try to have a dedicated group of persons even if you don’t separate it for the purpose of immigration.”

Complaints have always been coming in from members of the RGPF who have received specialized training in a particular field and then transferred to another department where the training they received is of no relevance.

The Senior Government Minister said Grenadians need to buy into treating each other nice and in turn, they will also treat visitors nice.

In his address the minister said that the country most valuable asset is the people and that Grenada is renowned for its friendly people and their charm is legendary.

He spoke of the crime rate being low but suggested that this must not be taken for granted and, therefore called for vigilance to preserve.

David admonished participants at the conference to uphold what is good and be very careful “to rid our environment of the threats” to the country’s cultural assets.

“Anti-social behaviour must be treated not only as threats to our values, but also as threats to our economic well-being, it is an asset as other assets,” he said.

David promised to implement a plan to embark on total evaluation of customer service at ports of entry.

He said that exercise is geared at having the friendliest and safest ports of entry in the Caribbean, which in turn will eliminate unnecessary delays in processing entry by would-be visitors.

The minister also felt that there should be a complete retraining of all members of staff at all ports of entry in the State of Grenada.