By Edrissa Jallow, @EdrissaJallow10
The Hansard department is a key element of the National Assembly, archiving all the plenary sessions verbatim. The Director of the Gambia’s Hansard Department, Ms Isatou Gassama shared some of the challenges that her department is currently faced with on the sidelines of a training organised by Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) on 12th January 2023.
According to Ms Gassama, despite the Hansard Unit having only ten staff of which three are editors and seven are transcribers, challenges remain due to a lack of the required Human and Technical resources.
“If you compare the fifty-eight NAMs to seven transcribers we cannot do that job that’s why we are having backlogs at the National Assembly’s Hansard department,” Director Gassama informed journalists after the opening ceremony of capacity building which took place at the National Nutrition Agency (NaNA).
The training aims to enhance the capacity of staff in producing verbatim reports of plenary sessions.
Ms Gassama revealed that she intends to overcome the backlog, however, resource challenges must be addressed to achieve this. “We need IT software that would be able to do the work for us because that’s our main problem now,” she enthused.
According to Director Gassama, the Hansard unit uses a foot pedal and an express type to transcribe plenary proceedings which she said reduces the workload of the staff. Reacting to the day-long training workshop, she assured that beneficiaries will take the training seriously.
Meanwhile, Gassama expressed sincere gratitude to the Office of the Clerk for providing “more support” to the Hansard department.
WFD country representative, Madi Jorbateh reaffirmed his continued support from his office while speaking about the importance of the National Assembly’s Hansard Unit.
“We [WFD] are committed to supporting the Hansard unit like many other parts of the National Assembly…we hope after this programme year the next programme year will be more support to the Hansard with all the challenges that are there, human resources particularly,” Said Mr Jorbateh.
