State House Press Briefing-The President’s Recent Engagements

The press Secretary at the office of the president, Amie Bojang Sisoho on Wednesday 18 September 2019 tabled an update before the members of the press at the statehouse. The briefing was meant to share the engagements of the president with the public and also bring light to issues of concern.

Among the engagements of the president, the press officer said that the president is reinforcing its monitoring and coordination unit through the department of strategic planning and delivery as part of their roles, and said that the structures and the operating procedures of projects coordination unit of the various ministries are being reviewed to standardize them. This she said is to ensure that it is in compliance with the national development plan. Then noted that which includes critical analyst of grants and loans to better coordinate the implementation strategies that would yield better results.

She also said that policy dialogues will be conducted with stakeholders with the restructuring of state-owned enterprises which the Gambia public procurement authority will be also engaged to address gaps and weaknesses n procurement procedures and standardizes in order to established proper and effective enforcement of the procurement laws.

In a pro active engagement, she said the department of strategic policy delivery at the office of the president has successfully coordinated dialogue with the staff and management of the University of the Gambia UTG. She said that they came up with a stowing point action plan on the concerns of the stakeholders from administrative and human resource, staff motivation, working conditions, the lack of communication on management decisions. The timelines of the action point she said would be immediate and others that are outside of the mandate of the management would be extended outside till 2020-2021 academic year.

She said that it was reported that they manifested maturity during the dialogue and the best was that the UTG stakeholders were their focus. The dialogue she said has resulted in averting an earlier decision between the UTG faculty and staff association to go on strike at the beginning of the academic year which could have disrupted lectures.

Rationalizing vehicles management and maintenance cost are being pursued at the office of the president and with the government policy, in this context, she said the state institutions in possession of government GA vehicles have been informed to return those vehicles to the vehicle controller at the office of the president with immediate effect. In response, she said some has already been returned and the outstanding ones are being pressured. Also, she said a new vehicle policy is underway to ensure efficiency in vehicles management.

Following the president’s launching of the national security sector reform SSR policy in June this year, she said the SSR is progressing with all their different agents developing their policies and standard operating procedures. She also said that they are developing their codes of conducts and disciplinary measure to address officers who may go outside their mandate.

She said that the monitoring and coordination of four presidential priorities in line with the national development plan is ongoing and that this is to provide a proper brief on deliveries. These she said are rural water supply, provision of labour-saving devices to support strategies for food security and value addition, rural electrification and feeder roads constructions. These community development projects she said are aimed at improving the social, economic and livelihood of rural people to ensure social inclusion.

During the monitoring of the progress of work on the road construction in URR, she revealed that it was discovered that work has been delayed due to the action of GAMTEL fiber cables and NAWEC water pipes. To unblock the challenges, she said different agency has been invited to discuss the relocation of the said items so as to fast track the construction.

On the UNDP electoral needs assessment mission, she said has met with the president

strategy policy deliberate department to consult on the processes, as well as ensure coordination in the implementation. The aim she said is to have a master plan that will take into cognizance, the timelines and compatibility of the electron nose to the new constitution being developed submission of the report, or the processes such as cabinet review of the report when it is submitted to input in the National Assembly and other related institutions, the registration of voters and the referendum on the new constitution. These processes she said will go parallel to the review of the institutional arrangements for national identification documents awareness-raising capacity building, and staff for staff to promote civil rights in a society that best fits the laws, a national and international constitution. All she said is to ensure better coordination of the paranormal activity is being undertaken consultations with stakeholders in the relevant ministries and civil society, ongoing to the to review the United States report on human trafficking in the Gambia.

On the President recent visit to the State of Qatar, she said has resulted to signing agreements and memorandum of understanding in various areas including customs satellite networks regulated regulation, public prosecution legal field, and in the field of Youth and Sports. As the procedures will have it, the details of the arrangements represented to the National Assembly by the relevant ministries aside for sign documents, the president was informed of the outcome of a bilateral meeting between the Minister of information and communication of the Gambia and the Qatar media Corporation.

 The cut in support of the Gambia to pay to host the 2022 OIC summit has purchased state of the art broadcasting equipment for $24 million for the Gambia radio and TV services and the staff of the national broadcaster will also benefit from training and capacity building to effectively operate the equipment donated by the Qatari government.

She informed that His Excellency President Adama Barrow support the government white paper on the concerns and recommendations of the Janneh commission report.

Regarding the resignation of some of the staff at the OIC local Secretariat their appointments were contractual and in any contractual agreement, any one of the parties can decide to leave at any time once written notice is provided that a written is shown. port

on the diplomatic passport saga, the president she said is aware and has assigned a full investigation into the matter, which is already ongoing.

To encourage young people in the area of sports and maybe the participants of the 12 African games in Morocco and officials of the Ministry of Youth and Sports to congratulate them fully upon the cabinet decision to award a gold medalist, and the other members of the team. The President is presented 11 title needs of the Atlantic properties to each of the volleyball, and athletes gold and with $50,000 to other sportspersons who were part of the team.