By Foday Moriba Conteh
At the Steering Committee meeting held on Friday 24th September, 2021 at the Conference Room of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Freetown, the National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) and its partners, including the EU, UNDP, Irish Aid, USA, UNFPA, WHO and others, discussed the draft bill for the regulation and policy development in respect of data protection, dubbed the ‘Civil Registration Bill, Civil Registration and National Identity Regulations’.
Welcoming the participants to the meeting, Lahai Lawrence Leema, who was representing the Minister of Internal Affairs, David Panda Noah, said is geared towards getting the inputs of all stakeholders on the draft bill, which will eventually protect the right of privacy of individuals, a fundamental right entrenched in the country’s constitution.
He expressed appreciation for the contribution offered by international partners, whom have stood with the team all along the journey, disclosing that this is the second of such a meeting.
Legal reforms, he said, takes time, as it involves adjusting previous provisions to address lacunas in the current laws, notable among are marriage, divorce and adoption provisions. Others like civil regulations in respect for civil registrations, including changing national ID cards, which includes fines, fees, procedures etc, is absent maintaining the need for review of the current NCRA Act.
The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs continued that data protection has been a concern since the idea of integrating personal data of individuals from the biometric electoral system following the past national elections.
He furthered that the importance to protect individual’s privacy is important for building confidence in Government entities, managing data, like what NCRA is doing.
The Act provides sharing of individuals data to state sectors and public entities, including learning institutions adding that the rights of individuals will be protected. That, he said, is necessary for the strategic national plans of Government thus inclusion of foreign organizations representing their nationals in the country.
Mohamed Mubashir Massaquoi, Director General of NCRA, in his statement, expressed pleasure in seeing development partners represented in the meeting. He explained that though it is a meeting of the Steering Committee, the public will want to know the actions taken to address the issues in respect of the review maintaining that such is the reason for inviting the Press to cover the opening session, but will retire for the technical session, which will only include all stakeholders and partners.
He informed that as far as the review is concern, the public should know that everything is on course and that the process of legal review has commenced.
DG Massaquoi maintained that recommendations from Elections Observer Missions during the 2018 elections informed the current action to develop the draft bill and formed the basis for the legal reforms on data protection and civil registration regulations that is currently being done. He further expressed appreciation for the support from development partners. The review, he went on, started some months ago and the draft was presented to the Committee and next in the process is development of the data protection law in the country.
He also disclosed that the said draft was approved by Cabinet, as the Government is determined to protect privacy and security of the personal data of people.
DG Massaquoi noted that development partners have also agreed to support the awareness raising that will be cascaded across the country adding that at the end of meeting, the draft will be submitted to all stakeholders for their inputs.
He furthered that it is the wish of President Bio that partners should support the development process of all such draft laws including consultations. He expressed hope that against the end of the year, the Bill would have gone through Parliament, as other MDAs depend on that law for their activities.
A closed-door deliberation on the technical details then ensued.
