By Binta Jaiteh
Yankuba Saidy, the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information yesterday spoke on the achievements of the Ministry in 2023 and also what is needed to establish the Access To Information (ATI)Commission and set the ATI implementation process.
The National Youth Parliament (NYP) with support from National Democratic Institute (NDI) lobbied with the National Assembly Select Committee on Education Training and ICT for the Ministry of Information to shed light on the progress and status of the Access to Information Act.
According to PS, the Ministry of Information was decoupled from the Ministry of Communication and Information Infrastructure on 4th May 2022, adding when that happened there was a new Minister of Information and a new PS.
“There was nothing like an organized handling over but I took it upon myself to understand what the imperatives of the Ministry were and one thing that came clear was the implementation of ATI,” he disclosed.
He added that on the political front, ATI appealed to a lot of stakeholders both National and International but the most important issue is that the risk is the extended scrutiny that comes with the implementation of ATI could also provide a deterrent to the implementation process.
PS pointed out that looking at the resources available for the structuring of nearly six months it was only he and the Minister who were identified as the staff of MOI all others came in in December.
“Upon my arrival in June 2022, the Minister and I embarked on national wide engagement to popularize the ATI, talking to media institutions around the country and letting them know that this ATI has got to be implemented and the government is resolving to implement the ATI Act because it is healthy for the democracy of a country and its governance,” he explained.
more so, that, they developed a TOR for hiring a consultant on the implementation of the ATI Strategy Roadmap and it was socialized with other civil society organizations, GPU, Freedom House, and others.
“What is evident on there was no budget line to support the implementation of ATI at the level of the Ministry they separated our budget in August and there was no money, and the new Minister, New PS who was not part of the effort of the enactment effort of ATI law.
“We just came over and inherit this as a legacy but the obligation to implement it is with the level of the Ministry. I, therefore, retrieve very seriously develop this particular document and this TOR and whatever is embedded in it. We did not have the financial muscle to implement it.”
PS further stated that in the 2023 budget, they also articulated that the ATI implementation process must be in the budget to give a serious signal that the Ministry and government in particular are interested in the implementation of ATI for which they put D12 Million in support to the formation of ATI Secretariat, Appointment of Commissioners and also establishing a secretariat staff.
Only D6 Million was approved and we are about to spend that money because the commission cannot stand on its own but it has to be supported by other processes to get the commission on its feet he added that they are very determined to do this.
Buba Fatty, representative of Gambia Press Union said they all know that the ATI Act came into being by the effort of the GPU and others and they felt that the Gambia should join the rest of the world to have the ATI Law so that the people can access information and then hold people that are in the offices accountable.
He said GPU realized that they cannot do it alone so they decided to engage CSOs with the MOI, MOJ until it has been enacted GPU is interested to see that ATI is implemented.
He said they wrote to the New Ministry to make a courtesy call and discuss the implementation and some of the draconian media laws to see how they can be repealed he stressed that they tried a lot but they couldn’t get that call.
However, they believe the ministry should take the lead which is why from the onset when the law was drafted it was handed over to the Ministry so that it can be taken to parliament to see that it is enacted.
