By Bockarie Kamara
The Chief Immigration Officer Moses Tiffa Baio past Friday during an engagement with the Oversight Committee on Internal Affairs told the Committee that the Immigration Department has 190 non-permanent staff. Moses Tiffa Baio said that the shortage of trained and experience staff forces the department to rely on volunteers to monitor over 800 porous border points in the country.
He maintained that the shortage of the required staff has heightening risks of illegal migration, smuggling, and transnational crime.
He went on that some of the volunteers have done over 15-20 years without being permanent.
The CIO informed Members of Parliament that the head of IT in Kpalamyya custom is not a permanent staff.
He added with the 190 non-permanent staff that they are about to employ people the department still retains those volunteers and employed another people which make their job very difficult.
He further explained that to the Committee that when they employ officers and deploy them to those remote areas they will not go there they will rather prefer to return to Freetown and it is the volunteers that will protect those borders areas.
Giving a breakdown of the number of non-permanent staff, the COI said that they have 1 in Kabala, 8 in Falaba, 1 in Sanya, 2 in Kamakwie, 7 in Water Quay, 1 in Okeykey, 2 in Tombo, 1 in Jui and 2 in Fisheries just to mention a few which sums up to190 which is very alarming.
The Chairman of the Internal Affairs Committee, Hon. Mises Edwin commended the COI for his determination to ensure that immigration department is transformed. He asked the COI to terminate all those who failed to go to their posting areas.
He also recommended that the next recruitment they should ensure that they employ those in the remote areas instead. Hon. Moses Edwin commended Moses Tiffa Baio on his efforts to transform the department.