It is the first month in the New Year and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) would be gearing up for the tasks they are supposed to perform for the next twelve months. The Ministry of Information and Communications is one very important arm of government and the Ministry even organized a media retreat last December in Bo where some MDA’s reviewed how their activities contributed to the actualization of the government’s manifesto commitments. Mohamed Rahman Swarray is the Minister of Information and Communications. On Tuesday 5th January 2021, Politico’s Alpha Abu interviewed the Minister at his Youyi building office in Freetown.
Politico: You took up appointment as Minister of Information and Communications in 2018 after the Sierra Leone Peoples Party swept to power. How did you size up the challenge at the time being at the helm of affairs in such an important arm of government?
When President Julius Maada Bio appointed me Minister of Information and Communications, I was humbled by the appointment because this is a country of 7.3 million people. I was elated. But I no doubt knew that this was a very challenging appointment. So, yes, I was excited, but I knew it was not going to be a walking park. I knew it was a challenging opportunity I had been given. I have seen Information and Communications Ministers come and go, but the period of my appointment was particularly a challenging one. The polarization of the media has at no time been so intense than the time I was appointed and now, so I knew it was a huge challenge.
Politico: What were the pressing issues you tried addressing immediately in the Ministry of Information and Communications?
There were very key issues. Don’t forget, as a journalist I know you are no doubt particularly just concerned about the information wing of the ministry which has to do with the media and public information and all of that. There is another wing, the communications directorate, which has to do with protecting government’s interest particularly in the sector, you’re talking about mobile network operators, creating the enabling legislation. So what did I do once appointed? One of my first order of business was to do a skills gap analysis. I am a human resource person by profession, so I had to do a resource audit, what did I have to prepare me for the challenges that came with my appointment because I would definitely need a formidable army of men and women dedicated - an army of the willing to support me to deliver on the President’s agenda. So one of the first things I did was to do a skills audit to understand the available skills, the available competencies, and identify the gaps and see how we could bridge it. So that was the first order of business because there were key challenges I needed to confront. His Excellency during the campaign had mentioned that he wanted a repeal of the obnoxious Criminal Libel Law of 1965. I needed to muster an army of the willing both within the ministry and outside to be able to do that. We also needed to address the age-old problem of bridging the communications gap between citizens and government and at the same time feedback citizens’ reaction to inform government policy. So we had all of those challenges. So I needed a good team to do that.
Politico: In January of 2020, President Julius Maada Bio at a retreat for senior government officials at the Bintumani Hotel conference center in Freetown put out a challenge to all heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies that it was going to be a year of delivery. How would you measure your Ministry’s level of delivery in line with the expectations of the president who is your boss?
I know the President is a very serious person. Once appointed during the swearing in ceremony he did say to us that this country had suffered for far too long and that we must be that group of men and women who must help save her. So since then, that has remained ingrained in my sub conscience in everything that I do. So, fired up by that challenge, we have been able to achieve many things including the repeal of Part V of the 1965 Public Order Act which many governments had promised repealing but were not able to do much about. So I am happy that I had the strong political will exhibited by the president. I am happy that I was able to work with various stakeholder groups both in and out of government including Parliament, to do the repeal. I am very excited that together we were able to make history.
Politico: You were a notable figure in the process of repealing the Libel Law, but it took the government over two years to get it off our law books. Is it to suggest that you as a government had a bit of trepidation about getting rid of it or that you could have only acceded to pressure from outside?
Well, you know there have always been fears and reservations and apprehensions even amongst government officials about repealing of the libel law. People have been victims yesterday, today and at all times in history of you know reckless, unprofessional and irresponsible journalism. So, even around the cabinet table there were those apprehensions, but I am very lucky, unlike some of my colleagues before me. I have a president who never wavered, who was able to muster the courage, the bravery, and who has always demonstrated commitment to the repeal process. So, once charged to lead it, for me there was no turning back. I had salient stakeholders who supported me every inch of the way; His Excellency the president was one, the Minister of Finance and some cabinet colleagues much later. Once they expressed their fears, doubts, reservations and apprehensions, we were able to address those, so everybody came on board. So it had solid cabinet approval. We moved onto parliament, they also had their fears, apprehensions, you saw it. The bill initially suffered a still birth and was withdrawn, but we went there with renewed vigor and vitality and we were able to convince parliament and this has been the most resoundingly supported legislation across party lines. So that speaks of our ability to share our vision across borders, across the aisle and across political parties.
Politico: Now, you will go down in history as the man who saw it all as Minister of Information and Communications. Looking at the way the media is, what fears do you have about the conduct of practicing Journalists now that the repeal has been done?
Well, I am very very confident and convinced that the heavens won’t fall and that the hell won’t break loose, this is beyond doubt. I know there will always be unprofessional issues here and there, but I have got assurances from the leadership of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists who have rekindled their disciplinary committee, they’ve reinvigorated it to include known journalists, members of civil society, respected former and current practitioners and that in itself is reassuring. The IMC Code is also there and there is a lot of work going on and I am sure journalists themselves cherish this new found freedom and they would want it to last forever, and that is our commitment as government. So they have committed to a more professional and responsible journalism and I don’t have any reason to doubt that. So far these are early days, but we will continue to work with them and provide them with support in training and capacity building and for once the new IMC law says journalists would now be paid salaries from henceforth. I know the whole lot of the irresponsible and the attack –collect –defend - collect journalism is as a result of people working for media houses without salaries. So I am sure the payment of salaries to those media practitioners will considerably address problems like those.
Politico: SALCAB is arguably the most important revenue generating agency within the Ministry, what steps have been taken to make sure that Wireless Fidelity or Wireless Local Area Network reaches upcountry, especially places like schools, colleges and hospitals?
Yes, I agree that SALCAB should be able to raise resources for government, even though in the past it has not been able to do that, eight years on. So yes there are many things we have done as a government; when President took up leadership in 2018 during his first FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) meeting in China, he was able to secure a $30 million loan for phase 2 of the National Fibre backbone. So we are extending fibre to other parts of the country which hitherto didn’t have for example Moyamba, Bonthe, Kailahun, Koinadugu districts among others. We are also doing metro rings in all the regional headquarter towns with access points, and what that means essentially is that it would be easy to connect homes, schools, government offices and even private individuals can easily do last mile connections. More importantly, we are also connecting most of the schools in the places where we are connecting. We are connecting schools in Pujehun, Moyamba, Koinadugu, hospitals, Council offices. This is to ensure that we increase broadband uptake because this is a digital world and His Excellency President Julius Maada Bio has committed to make a digital inclusive Sierra Leone and this is part of the efforts we are making to ensure that happens.
Politico: And would it be affordable?
Absolutely, I mean the guiding principles of all of this investment is to ensure that broadband connectivity is accessible, affordable and that served and underserved parts of the country are also looked after and taken care of.
NATCOM falls within your purview. As a regulatory agency for mobile telecommunications operators in the country, subscribers have for a long time complained of not being treated fairly by this government, and NATCOM quite recently want five new regulations be effected that would give a fair deal to subscribers and operators, how significant would those measures be to especially the ordinary people?
Those are very very important pieces of legislation. As a matter of fact, it was the deputy Minister who laid those regulations in parliament, and we have received a certificate of maturity after 21 days. So what that means is they address some of the key and critical perennial challenges in that sector. Things like management of the spectrum, Consumer Protection and a whole lot of other issues which have continued to bedevil the sector. So yes they can only make life better for our people. We want to ensure that everybody gets value for money and to ensure that we get a more predictable operating environment. And don’t forget we are just presenting the Electronic Communications Bill to Parliament which overhauls and replaces the National telecommunications Act of 2006 as amended in 2009. I mean this a very holistic legislation which now takes onboard all of the challenges that we have experienced dealing with the 2006 bill to this day. You remember at the time of the enactment of that bill it was on the National Telecommunications bill; we did not have fiber, there was no regulation around that, we had no 4 or 5G or regulations around that, and there was nothing like national roaming. So there are a lot of things the new legislation once enacted will address.
Politico: We were aware of some of your overseas trips and of what benefit were they to your Ministry?
Well this is one Ministry that has benefitted enormously from my overseas visits, just as the president’s visits. We saw the windfall that this country continues to have during the Covid-19 when there were no movements across the country, the country was still afloat and alive we continue to meet all our domestic obligations while at the same time doing critical investment. Again, that was as a result of his Excellency’s overseas travels.
With my travels, apart from positioning Sierra Leone to get her fair share in global and regional discussions, this country has been able to get palpable benefits from my visits. For example, for the very first time in the history of our country we are having what we call a national CIRT, what that means is the National Computer Incident Response Team. Don’t forget this is a digital age and a majority of our population is youthful and they are engaged in various social media platforms. Government has a responsibility to protect those citizens online as much as we do offline. So we are having a national CIRT which will work with the various sector players to ensure that things like cyber -crime, organized crime and other things are dealt with, are looked into. We currently have the cyber-crime bill in parliament, and we just went through successful pre-legislative hearings and we’re sure once parliament commences we will continue the rest of the process in Parliament. This is very important for us; we were able to have that investment because of the compelling case I made for Sierra Leone during an AU (African Union) meeting in Addis Ababa, so Sierra Leone is one of three countries that will benefit from the establishment of a national CIRT. Apart from the infrastructure we will establish, we will also be training our Law enforcement officers and members of the judiciary because cyber-crime is not something like a murder where you go you see blood this or that, the evidence is very volatile and people have to be trained to interpret and adjudicate them. So the law enforcement officers and the judiciary would be trained once this project comes on mainstream. So we expect practical in the next step to be seen in the course of this year.
Politico: Coming into this New Year, what will be your priorities or key delivery moves?
I also wanted to mention last year that Sierra Leone has been able to bring one of the leading social media platform owners here. We brought Facebook into the country so that we could deepen the discussions. We are very concerned that majority of our young people are using those platforms. Facebook also owns various other platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter, so they are a major stake holding group who brought the African Leadership here to engage with civil society and the media so that we could begin to explore potential ways we could benefit from social media rather than this attack, defend, collect, slash, burn and incitement which many Sierra Leoneans on social media are known for. So that was one big thing we did. We hope to continue to deepen that conversation and engagement with other platform users including Facebook.
Politico: So what are your new priorities for this year?
My priorities for this year are that we would want to reboot government information dissemination mechanism. We have decided that we would be having virtual meeting with all information attaches that are abroad abroad. We have also decided that we are meeting with all government information handlers across ministries, departments and agencies before the end of the month. We want to be able to clearly understand the challenges and be able to read from the same hymn sheet because we think there is the compelling need now than ever before for government information to be disseminated more aggressively particularly on social media platforms, so we are discussing that right now.
Again, His Excellency during the official signing of the repeal of the Criminal Libel Law committed to supporting the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists to organize an investment conference. We want to ensure that we work with SLAJ, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Trade to ensure that the investment conference is pulled off.
Politico: What about the road show? You had a retreat for media practitioners quite recently on reviewing the manifesto commitments of the government, and then you promised to have a road show to take the message of what the government has been doing to the people.
That was really a commitment (road show) by the Chief Minister, so we would work with the office of the Chief Minister to ensure that we deliver on that. That is a very strategic objective. Government has to be felt not only seen, so that is one practical way of doing that.
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