By Alusine Fullah

Recent happenings at the Sierra Leone Immigration Department have been on the spotlight for obvious reasons “issuing 50 service and diplomatic passports to undesirable people.”

In the past weeks, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) started an investigation into the operations of the country’s immigration department for three service passports and a diplomatic passport (a Guinean name, BASSAMBA DRAME, born 16/3/76).

Our sources believed that they are issued by the Chief Immigration Officer, – CIO Hon Alusine Kanneh to people that are not working for the Government of Sierra Leone. A close source from the Sierra Leone Immigration Department who has preferred to remain anonymous revealed to FORUM NEWSPAPER that: “The Chief Immigration Officer, Hon Alusine Kanneh has issued 50 passports and diplomatic passports to undesirable people. Honestly, apart from that, as I speak there are more and more undesirable people coming to his office for passports and diplomatic passports. With a brown envelop bribe, you case is solved for diplomatic passports and passports…”

In accordance with the Cabinet Conclusion [CP (98)45] of 15/07/1998, only the following categories of persons and their spouses are eligible to hold Diplomatic Passports: The Head of State; the Vice President; the Speaker of Parliament; The Chief Justice; all Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers; All Head of Institutions approved by H.E The President; all Representatives of Sierra Leone Abroad viz: Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Diplomatic Staff including Special Envoys in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations of 1961.

This medium also expects that after the passports investigation, the ACC will do the usual press release to allay the fears of citizens and the vision of president Bio. Sources further revealed that in January, 2024 CIO Hon Kanneh deferred the passport issuance procedures by unilaterally issuing another service passport to his personal driver (MOHAMED KAMARA, Service passport No.ES011672), who is not a Sierra Leone Immigration Department employee or an employee from the Human Resource Management Office. Yes you can have a personal driver but issuing a Service Passport to him is in contravention of the Civil Service Recruitment processes and way out of the routine issuing system. To be issued a Service or Diplomatic Passport, the Director General of Foreign Affairs and International Corporation has to write informing the Chief Immigration Officer that a person is an employee of a ministry, department or an agency an MDA and he/she is representing the country abroad. We hope the ACC will request for the memos from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs referencing those passports issued by CIO Hon Kanneh.

Furthermore, the actual drivers at immigration office do not even carry ordinary passports to drive and has not been assigned a vehicle to drive. Even if CIO’s personal driver is employed at immigration, he is not in a graded rank to carry a service passport. What this medium believes, there’s absolutely  no way an internal driver is rightly issued a service passport just to drive within Sierra Leone, that can only apply to Sierra Leone drivers in our missions abroad who represent our country and flag in foreign lands. This is an historic moment for CIO Hon Kanneh to have that “executive authority “To be issuing passports to anyone at any moment unchecked within this few months. How many years does he need to be unilaterally issuing our treasured documents and at what risk and cost, another source laments?”

As a credible and ethical medium, we try very hard to reach out the Sierra Leone Department Immigration and by extension the Chief Immigration Officer, to get his and the agency’s side of this story, however proved unsuccessful.