Muniru Kawa discusses his work as the project manager of the Records Management Improvement Program at the Public Service Reform Unit of Sierra Leone, particularly the verification of personnel records and removal of "ghost" employees from the civil service payroll. Kawa details the efforts of the program in interviewing civil servants to ensure appropriate grade levels and qualifications and cites the U.K.'s Department for International Development funding of these efforts. As independent contractors, the program's team members were able to maintain credibility with the civil service and accomplish far more than an internal civil service effort.
At the time of this interview, Muniru Kawa was the project manager of the Records Management Improvement Program at the Public Service Reform Unit of Sierra Leone. Kawa played a key role in supporting the development of records management in Sierra Leone over a period of 20 years. He served as head of the National Archives of Sierra Leone and as a lecturer in Records and Information Management at the University of Sierra Leone. His survey of records management practices in Sierra Leone provided the basis for the design of an MA course in Library and Information Studies at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. With his students, he developed a range of projects in Freetown to find means of restoring order to record-keeping systems that had collapsed since the country's independence. He also made substantial contributions to the development and implementation of records management systems in Gambia.