1. INTRODUCTION
Sierra Leone lies on the West coastline of Africa with a distance of 28,000 sq. miles in duration and bordered on the West by Guinea and Liberia with a population of seven million and ninety-two thousand one particular hundred and thirteen(7,092,113). It has a excellent range in the location of natural components that comprise different topography, climatic problem as very well as vegetation patterns. Sierra Leone has a Gross Domestic Merchandise (GDP) of fewer than 7.5 %, with a reduced per capita revenue of citizens. The rationale for this appalling figure of GDP can be partly attributed to the mismanagement of assets( human and products) which are not accounted for by way of supporting documents for the in general advancement of the country. So the absence of transparency and accountability by means of data has frequently been the continual documents administration issues which have an affect on each and every Ministries, Departments and Company (MDAs). The long-term data management challenges have been the contributing variables for the suffering of a broad the greater part of Sierra Leoneans which forged the blame squarely on lousy governance. This problem has been manifested in the political dispensation of the previous and present governments over the management of methods (human and components) for the general improvement of the country. As good governance difficulties grow to be immensely significant, documents retaining need to be attentively compensated to. This is evidenced in the legal rights and obligations of people as records have limitless principal value. On this note, it could be realised that any present day economic climate which can’t highly regard document retaining rarely build with no the existence of superior info. This is mainly because information and facts is considered a commodity essential to arranging for national improvement in these types of an financial system. In this vein the researcher propose to look into about the data administration circumstance at Ministry of Finance and Economic Improvement (MOFED) in enhancing accountability and transparency(sustainable enhancement) in Sierra Leone.
1.1 Assertion OF THE Issue
About the yrs a lot of issues have been uncovered as pivotal to the recent troubles and significant to the long term good results of general public sector information administration in Africa, Sierra Leone to be distinct:
The ineffective use of legal framework that guards the decision creating about file classification, preservation, and destruction of documents is normally manufactured in an abrupt fashion.
File holding troubles can’t be reached with out the coaching of information staff at the public sector.
It is however a truism that Document Administrators are not perfectly compensated in phrases of wage as opposed to other informational practitioners these kinds of as accountants and finance officers and minor appreciation of their job. This reduced profile is in essence the outcome of insufficient means for documents retaining.
The deficiency of investigation programmes to boost information administration issues much more greatly within just and outdoors govt to spotlight the significant of high-quality records keeping for the supply of accountable, effective and successful, and clear federal government.
The lack of accessibility to effectively-organised data which can be used to formulate, implement, and taken care of powerful providers. In Sierra Leone it is a typical practice in equally federal government and private departments for information officers to drop and misfile report mainly because of disorganized programs.
The benefit of records and the information they include, as nicely as their possible for exploitation, in assistance of great governance (sustainable progress), is not absolutely appreciated and recognized across Sierra Leone modern society.
As a result based on these problems highlighted above, the need to have to study on general public sector records to boosting very good governance prompted the researcher to look into about the report management condition at general public sector organisations particularly MoFED.
1.2 AIMS AND Goals OF THE Study
The key Aim of the review will be to critically evaluate whether or not or not general public sector data are designed and managed efficiently and efficiently at the Ministry of Finance and Financial Development (MoFED) in improving superior governance, transparency and accountability in administration. Whilst the principal aim of the analyze is to examine regardless of whether or not there is a documents administration division headed by the documents supervisor in getting right custody of all ministry records.
1.3 RELEVANCE OF THE Examine
The relevance of this review can not be overemphasized. The analyze is pertinent to the subsequent beneficiaries.
Foremost is the Governing administration of Sierra Leone as sponsoring agent in disbursing money for the setting of organisation-vast common for the price tag of unique file products and gadgets for the administration of documents. This will greatly enhance the federal government to lessen expenditure for data administration gear and source in keeping the spending budget-line regular. Also it will make advancement of the total performance and productiveness in an organisation when value-benefit method is taken care of.
Also, the researcher is of the feeling that the study will serve as a resource product for the management of data throughout Governing administration Ministries, Departments and Businesses (MDAs) of which MoFED is no exception. It will also greatly enhance disaster administration strategy for faster and far better administration choices across MDAs.
More, personnel at MoFED will uncover the examine valuable as they will be capacitated in the management of documents and archival administration. For occasion large charge is associated in processing of MoFED records, but they have no staff assigned to the responsibility of examining information procedures and treatments, if any, with the objective of cutting down value. Hence the MoFED employees will be educated for this endeavor.
Furthermore, the study is suitable to the MoFED administration/registry workers as it will give a great model which can be created into proper history management and archival procedures for implementation. Pretty much, MoFED administration really should maintain all documents about the Ministry and so their registry/administration personnel ought to assimilate the emerging records management technologies.
Ultimately, the general public extra so customers and researchers, will uncover the review applicable as it enables them to have a far better knowing of the management of documents, and will be certain that their documents are very well retained and appraised. As a result the right to entry facts by the community will be increased for accountability and transparency.
1.4 Style and design OF THE Review
The examine will contemplate sure variables connected to the generation and management of public sector information at MoFED. These are guidelines, pointers, and requirements services, products and supplies current, semi-present and non-existing records preservation, security and training competency disposition and retention ICT good governance (sustainable advancement), transparency, accountability and corruption buyers and so on.
In this review the inhabitants will be stratified into 3 types: Deal Officer (CO), Civil Servant Officers (CSO) and other staff at MoFED. And the sampling approach to be used is the straightforward stratified randomized sampling strategy simply because of it heterogeneous nature of the inhabitants and homogeneous in stratum.The supposed samples measurements will be: 30 Civil Servant Officers, 20 Deal Officers, and 10 for other staff respectively.
Also, the methodology for this study will be both qualitative and quantitative approaches. For qualitative technique observation and interviews will be conducted and info will also be elicited from text publications, journals and world-wide-web and for quantitative strategy questionnaires will be administered in amassing info. The author has currently designed an exploratory job interview from some senior and junior staff members relating to the aforementioned variables to be included into the questionnaire for the most important analyze.
Ultimately, for quantitative study approach the handled information will be offered/scored in different formats in the subsequent chapters: tabulations, charts, graphs etcetera, and then interpreted and analyzed dependent on particular targets relating to the management of records at MoFED. A Z-score and Probility benefit will be employed to take a look at hypothesis to demonstrate regardless of whether or not great records retaining enhance transparency and accountability at MoFED adminstrtion.
