OPENING STATEMENT BY THE PERMANENT SECRETARY AT THE
REVIEW AND VALIDATION WORKSHOP ON DRAFT ICT BILL 2008

Hon Fatim Badjie Janneh Secretary of State for DOSCIIT

Honourable Secretaries of State Present,

Honourable National Assembly Members,

Director General , Gambia Public Utility Regulatory Authority

Managing Directors and Chief Executive Officers,

Venerable Religious Leaders,

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

All other protocols observed,

First and foremost, I would like to show appreciation to our distinguished guests and friends who came all the way from Nigeria and United States to work together with us on this review and validation process. Engineer Ernest Ndukwe and team and ITU Consultant, Soffie Maddens you are welcome to the smiling coast of Africa , The Gambia.

I feel deeply honoured and privileged to be associated with such an important milestone in the ICT sector. The validation Workshop of the Information and Communications Bill 2008 is a significant step towards the provision of a sound legal and regulatory framework to govern the ICT industry.

The role of ICT in national development, especially in wealth creation, employment generation, and poverty reduction cannot be over emphasized.

Therefore the absence of an adequate law in this sector is a vacuum that could not be measured or ascertained. I am delighted that our gathering here today is a move towards filling this vacuum.

In my humble opinion, I think having the requisite legal framework for our sector is overdue despite past efforts to enact the Telecommunications Bill. But I must say that this prolonged delay might have been a "blessing in disguise'' hence the opportunity to integrate other relevant sector laws within the ICT industry.

Honourable Secretaries of State

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

You all may agree with me that the convergence of devices, technology and services has increased the need to enact harmonised laws for the information and communication sector.

Consequently, this Bill will no doubt help realize the full potential of Internet Protocol (IP) and regulatory convergence. The Bill has also taken into consideration information society issues such as data protection and privacy, cybercrime and electronic signature issues among others.

Madam Secretary of State with your blessing, I would like to take this opportunity to call on all participants to engage in a thorough review of the document before them in an open and value driven manner to achieve our ultimate objective of a validated Information and communications Bill.

This Bill is will create an enabling environment in Gambia 's ICT sector with a sound, harmonised and all purpose legal framework. As stakeholders, we all are duty bound to ensure that our cooperative, collaborative and coordinated efforts are demonstrated with the validation of this Bill at the end of this exercise. Let's endeavour and ensure that our tireless work accomplished here is paid off with final enactment of this Bill into Law as envisaged.

Our initial idea was to have a two day workshop, but considering that the "sarrens" are busy preparing for the EID I will urge participants to work late today and finish the task at hand so that the "sarrens" will have time to prepare for the EID tomorrow.

I welcome you all and looking forward to your constructive and fruitful deliberations.