By Ragan M. Conteh
Sierra Leoneans have expressed dismay over the non-availability of passports at the Immigration Department, adding that they have walked to the department for days without getting their passports.
Other sources say it is embarrassing for a country like Sierra Leone to run short of national passports at a time when the country is trying to improve its airline service system.
They said the lack of passports can threaten the peace, prosperity and health of the nation, especially so when some Sierra Leoneans might need an urgent passport to seek medical attention abroad.
‘I cannot understand if I really have to get out of this country at the time I want to because to date I haven’t gotten my national passport for the past three days though I have already paid for it. I always worry about whether someone is chopping our country’s passport money,’ said a man who listed his name as Kamara.
Sources from the immigration say there are no passport books at the moment and that the institution is expecting the printed passports on 3rd March 2022.
Many other Sierra Leoneans were alleged to have just taken their photos, register at the department and return to their homes, adding that they have afterwards walked to and fro the Immigration Department for days without getting their passports.
‘The immigration used to snap 100 individuals and above for a day but because of the lack of passports in the office they are only allowed to deal with 30 to 40 individuals a day,’ a source at the department said.
Sierra Leoneans who are urgently in need of passports and wanted to travel say they weren’t given travelling documents, adding that they spent days on end at the office without even a hope of getting their documents when they needed them the most.
Others blamed the shortage of passport booklets on the negligence of immigration officials who they say are not concentrating of how to secure enough affordable passports but are instead only interested in milking people in serious need of their passports.
The fate of Sierra Leoneans who are in urgent or desperate need of their passports remain in the balance.
Meanwhile, this medium’s attempts to reach the department proved futile as at press time.