COPA reveals 272 vacancies in Dept. of Immigration and Emigration

The Committee on Public Accounts (COPA) says there are 272 vacancies in the Department of Immigration and Emigration.

This was disclosed at the Committee on Public Accounts held in Parliament last Tuesday (16) under the chairmanship of  Prof. Tissa Vitarana, Member of Parliament.

It was revealed that there were 18 senior level posts, 113 tertiary level posts, 121 secondary level posts, 19 primary level posts and one vacancy under the ‘other ‘category. The officials of the Immigration and Emigration Department were also of the view that such vacancies would hinder the performance of the department. The officials further stated that requests have already been made to fill these vacancies.

According to the Parliament Communication Department, it was also discussed that the “Electronic Travel Approval” system, which has been activated in collaboration with Mobitel since 2012, has not been updated with the aim of providing a more comprehensive and attractive tourist service. Therefore, the committee questioned the modernisation of the system and the need to update it to suit the modern world. Accordingly, the system is already under consideration to be updated and will be done in the future, officials said. The Chairman of the COPA Tissa Vitarana recommended that a report be submitted within two months.

It was also revealed that two vehicles owned by the department in 2012 and 2015 had been involved in an accident a few years ago and are yet to be repaired and used. The officials said that this situation has arisen due to a problem with the insurance company and that an agreement has been reached with the insurance company regarding the repairs.

Discussions also focused on the display of the official logo of a private telephone company on a web page owned by the department, the registration of persons with dual citizenship, and foreigners residing in Sri Lanka illegally.

State Ministers Lasantha Alagiyawanna, Dayasiri Jayasekara, Prasanna Ranaweera and Members of Parliament B.Y.G Ratnasekera, Weerasumana Weerasinghe, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya, Dr. Upul Galappaththi, Mohamed Muzammil and Prof. Ranjith Bandara were present at this committee meeting.