The Department of Immigration recently signed a contract for an Integrated Border Management System (IBMS) with a Sri Lankan Information Technology company, Informatics International Limited to enhance collation of data at Fiji’s borders.
The Ministry of Defence, National Security and Immigration permanent secretary, Mr Jale Fotofili signed the contract with the director of Informatics Holdings Limited, Mr Hiran Wickramasinghe this week.
Informatics International Limited is the software solutions arm of the Informatics group which provides innovative solutions, customised software and support services.
Fiji’s Department of Immigration director Mr Nemani Vuniwaqa said the Integrated Border Management System was tendered last year and successfully awarded to Informatics International.
“Informatics was awarded the tender for the integrated Border Management System which was in place from last year. The Integrated Border Management System is something that will enhance how we collate data at the borders,” Mr Vuniwaqa said.
He said the IBMS is compatible with International Civil Organisation (ICAO) standards to enhance the level of security at our borders.
Mr Vuniwaqa said the system would also detect all fraudulent activities or bring it to a negligible level.
“The changes that are happening in this modern world give us the way forward in order for us to improve in our systems and to be on par with the other bigger countries. More importantly, the data that we derive from the border- the people that are coming in- we have to be in a position to verify every data that is collated at the border.”
Mr Wickramasinghe said they had been working on this project for a number of years and now looked forward to working with the Immigration Department.
“We will be providing a lot of software related services. Some would be regarding software development, implementation, customer support, project management, testing and maintenance of their database. We have been working on this project since 2003 because we already had a border control system running in Sri Lanka”.
“The exisiting system is an old system as it has been there for many years. An old system might not be able to cater for the new requirements of the immigration that are being implemented around the region as well as a lot of improvements in security and new processes are needed,” Mr Wickramasinghe said
Informatics International will officially commence this project next week and a team from Sri Lanka has been identified to come on site to work with the Immigration Department.
“We are having good presence in the Pacific. We have a customer already in Fiji- Sun Insurance, Telikom PNG and Micronesia but for Informatics to be having the ability to provide our services in Fiji for Immigration is a big supportive arm of Informatics into the country. We also look forward to providing more of our services to the immigration Department,” Mr Wickramasinghe added.
The contract with Informatics International is for a 5-year term.
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