October 7, 2021
By Mohamed Amara Gando
The Information and Communications Oversight Committee in Parliament on 4 October 2021 probed into the operations and activities of five Government Agencies including: the Sierra Leone Postal Service, the Independence Media Commission, Right to Access Information Commission, the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation, and the Government Printing Department in Freetown.
According to the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Boston Munda, their visit as a committee was to perform one of their constitutional mandates as a committee and at the end of their findings make recommendations to Parliament.
Hon. Boston Munda said the Constitution of Sierra Leone gives mandate to provide oversight to MDAs under their committee. He recalled that in their last meetings, there were a lot of promises made by the agencies, pointing out that they wanted to know whether the promises were met or not, noting especially updates on financial audits by Audit Sierra Leone and other institutions.
Reading the provisions guiding the activities of the Parliamentary Oversight Committees, the Principal Clerk of the Information Committee, Christiana Turay informed officials of various agencies that Section 93 sub-section (3 and 6) of the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone, established Parliamentary Committees to inquire and investigate the activities of Ministries Departments and Agencies.
In his response, the Managing Director of Sierra Leone Postal Service (SALPOST),
Brima Kattar updated the Committee on their audited financial report and explained that when he took over the management of SALPOST, the last audited report was in 2009-2011.
He continued that audit processes take time especially when it is external. He disclosed that SALPOST is not a sub-vented institution and what they generate internally is what they use to run the affairs of the institution, emphasizing that they are “currently constrained by funding”.
He highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on their activities. He said their core business is about mailing transportation across the globe and therefore when the airlines were not operational, their business went down completely.
The Committee Chairman reminded the General Manager of SALPOST that as Members of Parliament, representing their people and as MPs, they have a moral obligation and their obligation is to go back and tell their constituents about their activities.
Also, probing into the activities of the Independent Media Commission, the Information Committee realized that the IMC as an institution has a lot of challenges especially in the areas of mobility to carry out their key functions which is to monitor media institutions across the country.
Giving the overview of their functions, mandate, and other challenges, the Chairman Admin and Finance of IMC, Rev. Commissioner Eranus Thompson revealed that as it stands, the IMC has only one government official vehicle. He disclosed that IMC in its current records has 82 registered newspapers across the country. Rev. Thompson said the majority of the newspapers fail to adhere to the IMC code of ethics. “As we speak now, we have a lot of newspapers that do not operate daily. A very good number do come out three times a week and we even have others who don’t come out at all but only publish when they have an advert,’’ he explained.
He said since the review of the 2020 IMC Act came into law, there was a need to also update the media on the code of practice since the last code was in 2007. He added that with support from BBC Media Actions and from SLAJ and other media bodies, they have started engagement with media institutions across the country.
For his part, one of the Committee Members, Hon. Ibrahim Ben Kargbo recalled that when they established IMC during the days of the late President Dr. Ahmed Tejan Kabba, the President had in mind the concept of self-regulation.
“As the first commissioner at the time when IMC was created, it was not possible for us to give IMC self-regulation status because I wanted to see the extent to which IMC itself will discipline itself. You cannot continue to be part of the government all the time, you have to come to a time when IMC itself will take over and run its own show, that was what President Kabba had in mind when we came here. So, my simple question is – To what extent have we been working towards self-regulation?” he asked.
In conclusion of the Committee Oversight, Hon. Boston Munda assured the agencies that their concerns raised would be looked into, but however, encouraged them to deliver as he said “The people of Sierra Leone are tired of hearing excuses”.
The Oversight Committee Members included the Chairman Hon. Boston Munda for Cons. 021, Hon. Ibrahim Ben Kargbo Cons. 034, Hon. Quintin Salia Konneh for Cons. 007, and Hon. Dr. Mark Mahmoud Kolokoh for Cons. 032, Hon. Abdul Kargbo for Cons. 077, Hon. Benjamin Turay for Cons. 128, Hon. Abdul Sesay for Cons.075, Hon. PC Bai Kurr K. Sanka III, and Hon. Ambrose Maada Libbie.