By- Aruna Rashed Toma Bangura
The 2021 Auditor General’s report has exposed the Immigration Department for issuing visas in a stamp form rather than the actual visa stickers.
The report observed that issuing visas in stamp form makes it very difficult to ensure the complete trace of the quantities of visas issued and revenue collected.
The report disclosed that the Auditors held an interview with the Head of Foreign Nationals who told them that the discontinued use of stickers was due to the fact that the printing cost was paid by the Department while the visa revenue was collected by the National Revenue Authority as the printing cost led to added burden on the subvention allocated to the Immigration Department by the government of Sierra Leone.
The Auditors however, recommended that the Chief Immigration Officer and other relevant authorities should ensure the re-introduction of visa stickers and prohibit all staff to discontinue the practice of issuing rubber stamp visas and in the process the cost of printing stickers should be budgeted for and the Department should consider hiring the services of a local printer.
However, the Audit report 2021 observed that the ICT Unit at the Department was not properly structured as there were no formal for disaster recovery to enable the retrival of vital information in the event of an unavoidable loss of key data. They also observed that the inventory list submitted for ICT equipment was not comprehensive as it lacked asset tag, serial number and user identification.
The report noted that most staff were not using the official email address of the Department as official communications were done using private email address and there is a tendency for unauthorized users to access high risk data, security and confidential information of the Department.
The Audit report recommended that the Head of IT Unit should develop a disaster recovery plan, maintain an updated inventory list of all ICT equipment and institute an official email address for all staff that would serve as an official communication tool.