بســم اللّـه الرّحمـن الرّحيــم
In the name of Allah the Most Gracious the Most Merciful
May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his companions.
Our Chief Guest, Minister of National Planning and Infrastructure, Honourable Mohamed Aslam,
Vice Chief of Defence Force, Brigadier General Abdul Raheem Abdul Latheef
Acting Commissioner of Police, Mohamed Hameed
Commissioner General of Customs, Ahmed Numan
Commissioner of Prisons, Abdulla Munaz
Commander of Aviation Security Command, Captain Ahmed Shafeeq
Deputy Chief Officer of Maldives Airports Company Limited, Ahmed Fayaz
Our Foreign Immigration Partners and Subject matter experts From German,
Canada, United Kingdom and the United States,
Senior Management team of Maldives Immigration,
Dedicated Law Enforcement Officers,
Ladies and Gentleman
Assalamalaikum, and A very good morning.
It gives me much pleasure to be amongst you, this morning, on this wonderful occasion.
First and foremost, I would like to welcome you all to this integrated border security training program. Secondly, I would like to congratulate Maldives Immigration and our dedicated officers today, on marking the 69th Anniversary of Maldives Immigration.
From very humble beginnings Maldives Immigration has come a long way. We are at a crucial junction in the life of this institution. As we mark our 69th Anniversary, I want to set out our new border control approach.
It is an integrated approach with a shared responsibility on border control security and facilitation.
Securing of borders and facilitation of legitimate travellers is what border protection is all about.
We have taken on this task with determination. We will achieve this through coordination and cooperation with our domestic and International border security partners.
And by building our human resource capacity and enhancing our technical capabilities.
Dedicated law enforcement officers, you’re on the forefront of our border security ensuring the vitality of this nation and the security of our visitors and our people. We need to coordinate, collaborate and enhance our efforts to secure our borders from undesirables while facilitating genuine travelers.
The purpose of this very training program is to enhance the capabilities of our border security agencies by building capacities of our front-line inspection officers to examine travel documents and to identify illegitimate travelers.
We know that there is a direct nexus between cross border crimes and fraudulent identities and document security.
In the current threat environment, most cross border crimes are committed by individuals using fraudulent identities and fraudulent documents. Crimes such as human smuggling, human trafficking, terrorist mobility, smuggling of drugs are now mostly carried out through control border channels. In this context United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes states that fraudulent identities and security documents are the grease that eases cross-border crime of all types.
As a country heavily dependent on tourism, we need to enhance our border security and expedite movement of legitimate travelers while intercepting people, who pose threats to our security.
As border security agencies, we need to work together, train together and have a shared and a common understating on a national interest to build a resilience border.
In our shared efforts to secure our borders, I assure you with the help of our foreign partners, that this training program would be the first of one of the many to come.
To conclude, I would like to thank, our Chief Guest Minister of National Planning and Infrastructure, Honorable Mohamed Aslam, for inaugurating this event and for his presence.
I would also like to thank the senior officials of respective agencies, for taking their time from their busy schedule to be with us today.
And finally, let me thank the subject matter experts who are here to provide their technical expertise to our border security officers.
Once again thank you all on behalf of myself and Maldives Immigration.
والسّـلام عليـكم