Public Service Minister tours NRS Department, Head Office on construction

Honorable Babucarr O Joof, the Minister of Public Service, Administrative Reforms, Policy Coordination and Delivery recently toured to the National Records Service (NRS) Department at the Quadrangle and the new NRS headquarters under construction at Kanifing Institutional Area respectively, as part of his continued visit to departments under his purview.

The visit to NRS was aimed to familiarize himself with the operations of the institute, its effort to transform from paper-based management of records to digital, know their challenges, and how to tackle those challenges among other issues.

The delegation was received at the NRS Director, Mr. Bartholomew Marong, and his staff where Mr. Marong updated the Minister on the work of the various units/divisions within NRS, such as the Current Records Division, Records Center Operation Division, Archives Division, and IT Division.

Prior to the briefing, the Minister was later taken on tour of the office complex where various heads of Divisions had the opportunity to elaborate on their roles and responsibilities.

Minister Joofthere recognized the Director and team for exposing him to what the work of the institution and highlighted that there are plans to build a system (e-government) through the Ministry of Digital Economy that is robust and resilient.

He furtheracknowledged the role records play in ensuring transparency and accountability in administration and implore on the NRS to come up with strategies to move from manual records keeping to digital.

Joofurged the NRS boss to work on their policies and NRS Act 1993 to move from paper-based records management to digital, while he assured the NRS of his Ministry’s commitment to injecting a system that will be durable to serve the Gambian populace to their best.

In his remarks, NRS Dirrector, Mr. Bartholomew Marong thanked Minister Joof for the visit to both the NRS department in Banjul and its new headquarters under construction at Kanifing Industrial Area.

At the ongoing new NRS headquarters site, Mr. Marong elaborated to Minister Joof that his institution has signed Delegated Management Contract (DMC) with GAMWOKRS for the design and supervision of the construction of the new NRS headquarters in Kanifing.

At the end of the tour, Honorable Joof was taken to the building led by Mr. Habib Jeng CEO of Pinnacle Group, the contractor and the visit of the headquarters was also graced by the Director General of GAMWORKS, Omar Gaye, and his team.

There Minister Joof also expressed his satisfaction with the ongoing construction of the NRS’s new headquarters at Kanifing Institutional Area. He was accompanied to NRS by his Permanent Secretary, PatehJah.