By Donstance Koroma and Richard Kemoh
International Non Governmental Organizations in Sierra Leone have accused the Ministry of Labor and the Immigration Department for the delays in processing their work and residential permit documents.
The International NGO’s made the accusation during the hearing of the Parliamentary Committee on Non- Governmental Organizations held at Committee Room No. 3, Tower Hill, Freetown.
The INGOs have claimed that, they have always been submitting their documents regarding residential and work permits to both the Labour Ministry and Immigration for new staff members as well as updates for old members while further noting that they could not understand the reasons for the delay.
The Committee has also noted during the hearing that most of the INGOs operating in the country have presented attestations to the lawmakers instead of workpermit. Most of them were not able to provide updated Residential Permits as requested by the Committee.
Another issue of concern which the lawmakers had frowned at was the fact that, most of the international Non-governmental organizations are operating without Board of Directors in the country. It was discovered that most of the Boards supervising the operations of these INGOs are operating from overseas. This, the lawmakers noted, was making it difficult for INGOs to formulate or effectively contribute to policy decision making in the country. The Parliamentarians pointed out that, most of national management committees supervising the operations of these INGOs in the country are merely implementing policies and programs developed by their overseas Boards who are to a very large extent not well briefed on happenings in the country.
The Parliamentary Committee against this backdrop intends to summon officials of both the Ministry of Labour and the Immigration Department for clarifications on the issues raised by the INGOs.
The lawmakers are determined to ensure that the operation of INGOs in the country is well structured to the benefits of the people. They maintained that they will urge their counterparts in both the Ministry of Labour and the Immigration department to own up to their responsibility of ensuring that residential and work permits documents of INGOs staff members are regularized accordingly.