The Chief Immigration Officer, Alpha Kholifa Koroma has had his tenure renewed by President Ernest Bai Koroma for the third consecutive time, becoming the longest-serving head of the department.
Appointed in April 2008 and extended in 2011, he said he was very positive about the extension of his mandate "which is testament to my performance in the department".
The 52-year-old Kholifa told Politico that he was proud of his achievements which he said included "fighting corruption at the immigration department which has now minimised considerably with an increasing sense of confidence and respect for our passport overseas".
He said he had also linked the department to other immigration departments around the world.
He was born in 1962 in Port Loko town and raised in Lunsar where he schooled at the Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood Primary and later proceeded to the Schlenker Secondary school before proceeding to the Ahmadiyya Secondary School in Freetown where he completed his sixth form.
He briefly worked at the then Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service as Programme Officer where he was also trained as a broadcaster and newsreader.
He later studied at Fourah Bay College and upon graduation he served in the Sierra Leone Police and rose to the rank of superintendent and served in several units and districts including in the criminal investigations department and immigration.
In 1998 he worked on secondment at the then United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) as a Security Analyst for more than a year before leaving for the United Kingdom where he did his masters at the University of Leicester. He graduated in 2002 and was attached at the Merril Lynch Financial Centre in London.
Kholifa later read law at the London Metropolitan University where he graduated with an LLB(Hons) and an LLM.
He was subsequently recruited by the Government of Sierra Leone as Chief Immigration Officer.
(C) Politico 11/07/14
