Officials at the Department of Immigration are facing a three to four week processing backup after an early morning fire destroyed several computers, causing thousands of dollars in damage to the system.
Firefighters were called to the Hawkins Hill building after 7a.m. Friday and met flames on the department’s ground floor, police reported yesterday.
“The fire was contained in the computer room,” Sgt. Anthony Sands told The Bahama Journal Friday.
“There was some destruction to the computer system. Smoke also crept into some other areas. Preliminary investigations suggested that the fire might have been started due to an electrical shortage.”
According to the department’s IT manager, Ken Bethel, three of the five computer systems and one scanner were damaged.
“Replacing the computers will probably run us into $2,500 but the scanner itself is very costly. To replace that takes $27,000,” Mr. Bethel said.
“And so the computer side of it is no problem. We have machines to replace those, but it’s the scanner. It has been helping us quite a bit. But now we have to reorder that and that’s going to put us back three to four weeks. This will definitely affect our workload.”
The scanner is used on departure arrival immigration cards. Officials say it extracts data about each person who fills out the card.
“We will definitely have a backup in processing this data, considering that we process anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 cards per week or based on what we receive from the Family Islands and the airport,” Mr. Bethel explained.
The Department of Immigration was closed yesterday but is expected to resume normal operating hours on Monday.
Fire officials say they respond to an average of three structural fires per week.
Two days ago, fire gutted a seven-room single storey wooden home in McCullough Corner, leaving one of the occupants in hospital.
A 65-year-old man was found lying face down in an unconscious state on the floor in the kitchen area.
It is believed that he may have suffered from smoke inhalation.
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
