RETRACTION!!!

In our Friday 16 February 2024 edition, we published a front page story with the headline; “Kanneh Issues Diplomatic, 50 others to undesirable holders,” and ran it on our page 5 of the same edition, with the photo of the Chief Immigration Officer.

In the said article we reported that the Sierra Leone Immigration Department has been on the spotlight for obvious reasons “issuing 50 Service and Diplomatic Passports to undesirable people.”

We also reported in the story that 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).We also referred our readers to the Cabinet Conclusion [CP (98)45] of 15/07/1998, which clearly states that level and categories of persons and their spouses that are eligible to hold Diplomatic and Service Passports: They include; the Head of State; the Vice President; the Speaker of the House of Parliament; The Chief Justice; all Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers; All Head of Institutions approved by the President; all Representatives of Sierra Leone Abroad viz: Foreign Service personnel, Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Diplomatic Staff including Special Envoys in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961.

However, being a responsible media outlet in Sierra Leone and beyond, FORUM NEWSPAPER would like to make a retraction of the story, which did not go down well with the management of the Sierra Leone Immigration Department, and by extension the Chief Immigration Officer.

We first of all want to retract the story wrote on the Department and Chief Immigration Officer and to tender our apology to Sierra Leone Immigration Department and the Chief Immigration Officer for any inconvenience and embarrassment the news item may have caused to the image of the agency and the hard earned reputation of the personality of the CIO, his families and staff of the aforesaid institution.

We also want to state that the article intended to create no ill-will against our results oriented CIO.

Again, our apologies to the Chief Immigration Officer and staff for any inadvertent aversion story may have caused to the Department.