By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
The immigration office on Rawdon Street in the heartland of the nation’s capital, Freetown, is almost empty. Labourers and cleaners are busy cleaning the floor and cobwebbing the wall in preparation for the movement to the new office.
Few staff could be found there and they were busy transferring furniture and equipment to the towering Ministry of Foreign Affairs building on Tower Hill to get a new and decent work environment.As the movement to the new office gathers pace, clients of the immigration department are found at the office premises hanging around to do the normal business.Their faces portray some amount of hopelessness as if to let everyone know that they are disillusioned with the system.
Some would express their frustrations at the department over the delays to access passports. One of them, perhaps most desperate is DaudaKargbo. He toldPolitico that he had been in business with the department for quite some time but with bitter experience. Dauda is found leaning on the wall of the immigration office looking weary.He says he has been standing there for over two hours just to get his passport he had allegedly paid for over a month ago. This passport which Dauda said he had paid for was yet to be issued out to him. He told Politico that he had been in the office on countless occasions to complete business with the office but with no success.He didn’t even know exactly when the passport would be out and no assurance from any of the staff. “The situation is very bad,”he said.
At the entrance of the main office upstairs, where a general duty police constable was standing guard,groups of customers stood a distance away discussing their situations. They shared similar problems with Dauda but theirs seemed more embarrassing as they accused immigration officials of ‘double standards’ in their service delivery. One of the customers, Allieu Kamara, said that he had paid for a passport for over a month but was yet to receive it.He said the immigration officials accord preferential treatment to clients they thought were more important than others.
“They treat other customers with respect and fast-track their businesses while they delay others,”Allieu alleged. The statements of both clients added more weight to the long cries of members of the public about the Immigration Department. A great majority of the Sierra Leonean population had voiced their frustrations about delays in the department.
This is very frustrating and dampens one’s zest to travel across national borders, especially when the trip is urgent.The department occupies a central position regarding international travels as countries have today become more conscious about national security than ever before.Countries are keen to know the records and reputations of people who enter their countries to determine whether they pose a security threat to their state security.Who knows whether these deprived citizens will resort to dubious means just to get the document and fast-track their businesses?
This nation has witnessed several situations in which people from other countries have claimed Sierra Leonean citizenship through the use of fake passports.
In a bid to confirm the claims of these desperate clients, Politico interviewed an inside source who spoke on conditions of anonymity.His response regarding the constraints the clients complained about anchored on two principal factors bordering on the department’s move to biometric and the movement from the old location to a new one.
Giving an overview of the biometric system,the official explained that the biometric system was not a government initiative but it was an initiative of the International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO) which was an international organisation regulating the participation of all business stakeholders in the aviation industry. The organisation is poised to move from the old system of passports to the biometric system.
Quite recently,the organisationissued an ultimatum that every country should go biometric by 2020 without which citizens of defaulting nations would be refused travel across international borders either by air or by road. In compliance with this international standard set bythe ICAO, Sierra Leone’s Immigration Departmentwas creating the ideal platform to realise such a change.As of now,the immigration department is currently liaising with relevant ministries,departments and agencies(MDA’s) including the ministry of finance and parliament to fix the biometric passport pricing system at Le 500,000(five hundred thousand leones).
“We have done the installation of the state-of-the-art infrastructure and we are waiting for the launching,”he said. He explained that the date for the commissioning of the biometric passport would be set by President Ernest Bai Koroma in the not too distant future, adding that the Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) was liaising with the office of the President to expedite the process.
Although the biometric system is set to target the year 2020,Sierra Leone’s status as low-income nation prompted the Immigration Department to start the ball rolling now and to forestall the “mad rush”.The immigration official was of the firm conviction that if the biometric system of registration did not start in good time,the likelihood would be very high that the country would be counted among those that responded late to the ICAO call.That situation, the official feared,would be very bad for the country.
“In our own little way, we have been engaging the media three years back to inform the public about the new arrangement,” the official explained.The question which Politico put to him was that whether the new passport price would make the Immigration Department enjoy public cooperation compared to previous times when the price was just a hundred thousand leones (Le 100,000)?He said he had not conducted any public perception survey that would help him know whether the price would be wholeheartedly accepted by the public.
The issue of the department relocating to a new environment also deserves a particular mention in this article since it directly impacts on the operations of the department. As it stands, the source believes that one thousand passports have arrived and they are at the quay awaiting clearing.I believe that the delay to get these passports cleared would be partly responsible for the delays the
clients are facing to access their passports. Another salient question on the lips of members of the public is that: is the immigration department waiting for the launching of the biometric passports by the president before it clears the one thousand already at the quay?
The salience of the question lies in the revenue generating capacity of the department. I believe that a biometric passport which costs Le500,000 would generate more revenue than the old Le100,000 or Le200,000.This suspected move on the part of the department to have more funds in their coffers when eventually the biometric passport is unveiled clearly resonates with the notion that any structure or institution set up by the state is a mere superstructure that depends on finance for its survival. In paraphrase,every institution needs money to support its day-to-day operations so that it can meet its service obligations to its customers or clientele.
Nonetheless, the protection and promotion of the interest of the clientele reign equally paramount.We are all aware of the adjustments inherent in any change.Whether the change borders on a shift in operation or a change of environment for the department, certain structures must be adjusted to meet public expectations and to dispense appropriately the onus bestowed on it by law.All these facts narrated by the source were bolstered by the Chief Immigration Officer’s several appearances on the radio and other communication channels to deliver the message about the new arrangement in the immigration department.It is a good move by the officer, Kholifa Koroma, to engage the media to hammer home the message but the people need fast and quality service.
We are also expecting that the liaison between the immigration officer and the office of the President would bear good fruits which the people would be happy to suck.Perhaps what is worrisome is the centralisation of the Immigration Department in Freetown for the initial period.
“For a start,the operations of the department will be centralised in the capital city but will be decentralised later,” the source explained. Whatever goes on within the department, either a change of environment or an adjustment of operations the people’s interest comes first, since this is the basis for the setting up of public institutions. No procedure should be adopted to become red tape. Red-tapism should no longer have space in our books. Therefore, the relocation of the Immigration Department should not be done at the expense of the ‘people’s interest.’
(C) Politico 11/06/15
