By Ibrahim Joenal Sesay
January 4, 2021 (232News)
FREETOWN – Sierra Leone has a passport problem. For too many years, corrupt officials issued Sierra Leone regular and official passports to undeserving people, some who are not even legal citizens of Sierra Leone. On September 12, 2018, the Anti-Corruption Commission of the New Direction stated that “the ACC is determined to restore sanity and inject integrity into the issuance of our national passports.”
But instead of sanity, the passport problem was so out of control, that on September 11, 2020, the United States announced that Sierra Leoneans will no longer be eligible to apply and receive any visa to travel to the United States, with very few exceptions.
Too many individuals with Sierra Leone passports gained illegal access into the United States, and then overstayed their visa, in violation of US immigration laws.
7,000 US dollars for a diplomatic passport
On September 12, 2018, an ACC investigation resulted in the arrest of several individuals in front of the U.S. Embassy in Freetown, in connection with the issuance of service and diplomatic passports to undeserving persons. In Reuters interview, the ACC Commissioner, Francis Ben Kaifala, stated that corrupt Sierra Leonean officials have been selling fraudulent service and diplomatic passports for up to 7,000 US dollars each, and then helping the buyers apply for a U.S. visa.
“We have evidence of high-ups at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Department participating, and neither agency has much, if any, control over it,” Kaifala told Reuters. He added, “There have been many, many people to gain access to the U.S. this way, with passports that were not proper. It’s systemic.”
One of the individuals arrested in front of the US Embassy, Alfred Kallon, former Senior Human Resource Officer at the Office of the Administrator and Registrar-General, was convicted on March 4, 2020 on 34 counts of corruption offences. Kallon was accused of using his influence to improperly make requests for, facilitate, and ensure access to official Sierra Leone passports and was ordered to pay 150 million Leones (approximately 15,625 US dollars). This small fine by the court is barely the amount that Kallon would have charged for just two fraudulent passports.
How did it all start
In January 2017, the U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, signed the Executive Order that led to the immediate deportation of illegal immigrants that were subject to “final order of removal” issued by a court. Among the illegal immigrants were Sierra Leoneans who committed various crimes, including overstaying their visa.
The U.S. requested that foreign governments, including Sierra Leone, take appropriate steps to confirm the citizenship of those believed to be their nationals, to timely issue travel documents and to accept their return to the country of origin. Any country refusing to cooperate would be labelled “recalcitrant.”
But a few months into the process, in September 2017, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) noted that Sierra Leone, and a few other countries, delayed or refused to accept their own citizens back into the country. As a result, Sierra Leone was added to the list of “recalcitrant countries,” some visa restrictions were imposed on regular Sierra Leoneans, and the US was forced to release 831 Sierra Leonean deportees back into the US.
Sierra Leone’s lack of cooperation to accept its own citizens back into the country finally resulted in a complete visa blackout on September 11, 2020, when the U.S. announced that it has discontinued issuing all visas for Sierra Leonean citizens, with limited exceptions, a statement that the U.S. Embassy Freetown publicly announced.
Sierra Leone accepted 8 out of 1,300 deportees
In reaction, on 19 September 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MFAIC) stated that “the government of Sierra Leone notes with concern that this visa sanction extension has been communicated in just two weeks after Sierra Leone received eight (8) more deportees in a series of deportations by the United Stated over the years.”
Ambassador to Sierra Leone, Maria Brewer, said that 1,300 deportees were awaiting to be returned to Sierra Leone. During an interview on September 22, 2020, granted to Radio Democracy, Ambassador Brewer said that the government of Sierra Leone was not cooperating in a timely and consistent-enough fashion on the deportation of Sierra Leoneans illegally present in the United States.
“When Sierra Leone citizens have been ordered to be removed from the US, […] and they need travel documents to be able to return to Sierra Leone, the government of Sierra Leone must issue those travel documents. In this case the U.S. feels that Sierra Leone has not been doing so quickly enough, in a timely fashion, or consistently enough,” Brewer said.
This newspaper submitted a Right to Access Information (RAI) request pursuant to the RAI Act, 2013, to the Immigration Department of Sierra Leone. However, the request was never answered, in violation of the RAI Act.
How did the SL government explain?
On September 19, 2020 the MFAIC stated that Sierra Leone has been collaborating with the United States to the extent that they have even received non-citizens in the process of compliance.
The statement referred to the cases of 55-year-old Saren Idaho and 47-year-old Prince Latoya who were deported from the US on August 14, 2019 after the Sierra Leone Embassy in Washington D.C. recognized them as Sierra Leone citizens and issued emergency travel documents. In interviews with multiple media outlets, both men stated that they are from the Caribbean and resided in the US for several decades prior to deportation.
Officials speak
On December 23, Abdul Karim, spokesman for the Office of National Security (ONS) stated to this reporter that, because of the Idaho/Latoya case, when two individuals who don’t belong to Sierra Leone were returned to Sierra Leone in error, a deportation committee was set up, which includes MFAIC, ONS, the Immigration Department, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) and the foreign missions involved in deportation.
This committee investigates every deportation case, and those that meet the threshold of citizenship are accepted, and this is communicated to the country deporting them. Furthermore, when profiling of every deportee begins, their file is submitted to the SLP, adding that the majority of Sierra Leoneans deported from the U.K. and U.S. are because of immigration irregularities.
Abdulai Daramy, National Coordinator of the Network of Ex-Asylum Seekers (NEAS), was more direct when assigning blame for the situation.
“Let the Immigration Department and the people of Sierra Leone ask themselves, why foreigners who are sometimes deported to the country are having our passport? This is because of the corrupt activities that are going on at the Immigration Department.”
Daramy revealed that four of the deportees received in August 2019 from the US have died, while some are frustrated as they are in the country without any psychological counselling or support. NEAS has 194 deportees registered with the organization, out of a total of about 800 deportees in the country. “We are appealing to the government to look into the plight of deportees, they are in stress. Some of them have to be taken to the mental home and some do not have accommodation,” he added.
On December 17, James Lebbie, officer at the Directorate of Administration of the MFAIC, stated in an exclusive interview that Sierra Leone’s Immigration Department is responsible when foreign nationals illegally receive Sierra Leonean passports.
“The Embassy verifies passport cases, but for citizens only that are out of the country, and in many situations, those that are doing clandestine activities, do not go to the embassy until when they are caught,” Lebbie said.
Karim Will of ONS also said that “we have never had a situation of any of [the deportees] involved in crime, and they are not a security threat in any form. Most of their concerns are welfare issues, as some are depressed, considering what they have lost: sometimes family and finances.”
The head of the media unit at the SLP, Superintended Brima Kamara, said that authorities notify them about the incoming deportees, and inform them about whether the deportee has a criminal record, or just a visa overstay.
“Some offences committed by the deportees while in the US will put the SLP on the alert to keep an eye on them,” he said. Kamara did not confirm if any deportee is in their custody.
The crime starts in Sierra Leone
The passport fraud issue is well known to the Bio administration.
The Government Transition Team report (GTT) published in 2018 stated that “a verification exercise conducted by the GTT, of the issuance of 1,179 diplomatic passports, revealed that hundreds of ineligible citizens were granted diplomatic passports and that dozens of those passports could not be accounted for.”
“If sold to outsiders, the diplomatic passports could fetch millions of dollars. The former Chief Immigration Officer [Kholifa Koroma] must be made to account for those passports.”
The Director of Public Education and Outreach Department of the ACC, Patrick Sandi, in a telephone interview on December 29, 2020, said that he did not have any updates regarding the passport fraud.
