Managing Public Sector Records in Sierra Leone: A Sample Academic Research Proposal

1. INTRODUCTION

Sierra Leone lies on the West coast of Africa with a distance of 28,000 square miles in duration and bordered on the West by Guinea and Liberia with a populace of 7 million and ninety-two thousand 1 hundred and thirteen(7,092,113). It has a great range in the location of normal parts that comprise various topography, climatic issue as properly as vegetation styles. Sierra Leone has a Gross Domestic Merchandise (GDP) of less than 7.5 %, with a lower per capita money of citizens. The rationale for this appalling determine of GDP can be partly attributed to the mismanagement of means( human and elements) which are not accounted for by means of supporting information for the all round improvement of the country. Hence the lack of transparency and accountability as a result of data has normally been the persistent documents administration troubles which have an impact on every single Ministries, Departments and Company (MDAs). The serious records administration problems have been the contributing variables for the suffering of a vast greater part of Sierra Leoneans which cast the blame squarely on bad governance. This problem has been manifested in the political dispensation of the past and existing governments more than the control of sources (human and elements) for the general improvement of the country. As good governance issues become immensely crucial, records retaining should really be attentively paid out to. This is evidenced in the rights and duties of folks as documents have unlimited main benefit. On this take note, it could be realised that any present day financial state which can not extremely regard file retaining rarely develop with no the existence of fantastic information and facts. This is mainly because details is deemed a commodity crucial to scheduling for national enhancement in these an financial state. In this vein the researcher propose to look into about the records management predicament at Ministry of Finance and Financial Growth (MOFED) in enhancing accountability and transparency(sustainable growth) in Sierra Leone.

1.1 Assertion OF THE Dilemma

More than the several years a lot of challenges have been uncovered as pivotal to the recent complications and significant to the future achievements of public sector information management in Africa, Sierra Leone to be particular:

The ineffective use of authorized framework that guards the final decision generating about document classification, preservation, and destruction of records is typically created in an abrupt fashion.

Document maintaining troubles can not be obtained without the need of the coaching of documents staff at the public sector.

It is even now a truism that Report Managers are not perfectly compensated in conditions of income compared to other informational practitioners such as accountants and finance officers and little appreciation of their activity. This small profile is essentially the consequence of inadequate assets for records keeping.

The absence of investigate programmes to boost documents administration troubles much more greatly in just and outside the house authorities to highlight the significant of excellent documents retaining for the shipping and delivery of accountable, productive and productive, and clear government.

The deficiency of accessibility to perfectly-organised data which can be utilized to formulate, carry out, and preserved efficient providers. In Sierra Leone it is a popular practice in the two governing administration and personal departments for data officers to drop and misfile record because of disorganized techniques.

The value of documents and the details they consist of, as well as their prospective for exploitation, in support of very good governance (sustainable advancement), is not fully appreciated and recognized throughout Sierra Leone society.

Hence based on these troubles highlighted above, the need to have to investigate on public sector records to boosting excellent governance prompted the researcher to investigate about the document management scenario at general public sector organisations particularly MoFED.

1.2 AIMS AND Goals OF THE Study

The main Goal of the examine will be to critically evaluate irrespective of whether or not general public sector records are produced and managed successfully and effectively at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) in enhancing great governance, transparency and accountability in administration. Even though the primary aim of the analyze is to look into regardless of whether or not there is a data administration office headed by the documents manager in taking suitable custody of all ministry records.

1.3 RELEVANCE OF THE Examine

The relevance of this study are unable to be overemphasized. The examine is suitable to the following beneficiaries.

Foremost is the Government of Sierra Leone as sponsoring agent in disbursing money for the environment of organisation-wide standard for the cost of certain file gear and devices for the management of information. This will greatly enhance the government to minimize expenditure for documents administration equipment and source in sustaining the funds-line typical. Also it will generate enhancement of the overall effectiveness and productiveness in an organisation when value-benefit tactic is maintained.

Also, the researcher is of the opinion that the analyze will provide as a source material for the management of documents across Governing administration Ministries, Departments and Organizations (MDAs) of which MoFED is no exception. It will also enhance catastrophe administration strategy for quicker and far better administration choices across MDAs.

Further more, team at MoFED will discover the analyze useful as they will be capacitated in the management of data and archival administration. For instance substantial price is involved in processing of MoFED documents, yet they have no employees assigned to the duty of examining documents procedures and methods, if any, with the objective of decreasing cost. So the MoFED employees will be trained for this job.

Additionally, the study is related to the MoFED administration/registry staff as it will deliver a great design which can be created into acceptable history management and archival processes for implementation. Practically, MoFED administration ought to maintain all records about the Ministry and so their registry/administration team need to assimilate the rising records administration systems.

Eventually, the public additional so consumers and researchers, will obtain the review pertinent as it allows them to have a far better comprehending of the management of documents, and will be certain that their information are effectively kept and appraised. Thus the proper to accessibility details by the general public will be improved for accountability and transparency.

1.4 Structure OF THE Examine

The review will take into consideration selected variables relevant to the creation and management of community sector records at MoFED. These are insurance policies, recommendations, and requirements amenities, devices and materials present-day, semi-recent and non-recent documents preservation, protection and education competency disposition and retention ICT great governance (sustainable enhancement), transparency, accountability and corruption users and many others.

In this research the populace will be stratified into a few categories: Contract Officer (CO), Civil Servant Officers (CSO) and other employees at MoFED. And the sampling system to be utilised is the easy stratified randomized sampling approach since of it heterogeneous mother nature of the inhabitants and homogeneous in stratum.The meant samples dimensions will be: 30 Civil Servant Officers, 20 Contract Officers, and 10 for other staff respectively.

Also, the methodology for this analyze will be the two qualitative and quantitative methods. For qualitative method observation and interviews will be executed and facts will also be elicited from textual content books, journals and online and for quantitative process questionnaires will be administered in amassing info. The author has currently built an exploratory interview from some senior and junior workers relating to the aforementioned variables to be integrated into the questionnaire for the key analyze.

Last but not least, for quantitative exploration approach the taken care of information will be offered/scored in diversified formats in the subsequent chapters: tabulations, charts, graphs and so forth, and then interpreted and analyzed centered on distinct targets relating to the administration of information at MoFED. A Z-rating and Probility benefit will be employed to check speculation to prove no matter whether or not fantastic data trying to keep improve transparency and accountability at MoFED adminstrtion.