Diego Bol Addresses I.T. Management for Kim Passport
Rodolfo Bol
Two of the scheduled three witnesses for today’s public hearings of the Senate Special Select Committee on Immigration testified. They are current information technology manager Rodolfo Bol and former database administrator, now Acting Director of the Central Information Technology Office (CITO), Francisco Gonzalez. Bol, as former systems administrator for the Department, was in charge at the time covered by the Special Audit Report, and was informed from time to time by supervisors of the need to assign particular roles to staff covering for other staff members when it came to the Belize Passport Information System. Trouble is, in the case of the Won Hong Kim passport, the same person – Erwin Robinson – acted as quality assurance, printer and one other role. Bol told the Senate panel that these concerns were often legitimate and it was not up to him to question them.
Mark Lizarraga
Mark Lizarraga, Senator, Business Community
“The Auditor General is saying that in looking at the history of procedures, and we know you have different roles and I suspect the reason you had different roles was so that you could have checks and balances in the system. First of all, you had a person that created the file – in this case it was Erwin Robinson. And then you had Erwin Robinson as data entry completed; and then again you had Erwin Robinson as quality assurance pass – whatever that means; I guess he was the final check. Why would we have had – why would the system have allowed the same person to perform three roles?”
Rodolfo Bol, Former Systems Administrator, Immigration Department
“The first two roles is the same role – the data entry creator and data entry completed are the same role; it’s just separated by two different entries, but it’s the same role. And again, it depends on the supervisor; they will call me – you know what, we need to assign this person the QA role, because [we] are short of staff, X reasons; they don’t have to explain to me. And then, I will go ahead and update that account, to have two access: data entry and QA; or data entry and print; print and QA; whichever they need at the moment.”
Mark Lizarraga
“And these authorities would come to you in writing or verbally?”
Rodolfo Bol
“Verbally; they usually will make a call.”
Mark Lizarraga
“So there is no way to prove that you did in fact receive instructions?”
Rodolfo Bol
“Yeah; it’s usually a call I will receive; and it’s usually the Supervisor – users, no; anybody can’t just call me, I want access to this, no.”
Mark Lizarraga
“But would you have advised the Supervisor, on receiving that call, that Mr. Erwin Robinson was the one inputting the data, so why would they want to give Mr. Erwin Robinson the quality assurance and the final authority in this process?”
Rodolfo Bol
“Like I said, I wouldn’t know what each user does every day, because I don’t check what they are doing, but if the request came in we go ahead and update it.”
Mark Lizarraga
“Mr. Bol, were you involved in the design, or did you have any input into the determination of whether we would secure this system?”
Rodolfo Bol
“No.”
Mark Lizarraga
“This decision was not…”
Rodolfo Bol
“When I came in in 2004, it was basically for the installation of it; all the assessment has been done already prior to it.”
Mark Lizarraga
“And you did not identify this as a weakness, structural weakness in the way…”
Rodolfo Bol
“We prefer to have one user to one role – either one to data entry or another user to QA, but again I believe it is determined by the staff demands, I believe at the Passport Section – if somebody calls in sick, if somebody is not in office, they require somebody to do that additional process, and I believe that’s why the supervisors would take that decision and call me to say can you add this person also to QA, or to print, whichever other role is needed.”
