By Ragan M. Conteh
The Clerk of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone, Honourable Paran Umarr Tarawally, has in an exclusive interview with the Chief Administrator of the Parliamentary Update Group Sierra Leone (PUG-SL), Melvin Tejan Mansaray, explained the role of the media to the House of Parliament achieving its ‘Big Idea’ for the year 2021.
The “Big Idea” for the year 2021, which is also the theme for the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported second Parliament of Sierra Leone’s (PoSL) ‘Annual Staff Retreat’, is “Embracing A Corporate Future.”
The retreat commenced on Wednesday 16th and ends on Friday 18th December 2020 at Committee Room No. 1, O.A.U Drive, Parliament Building, Tower Hill, Freetown.
Hon. Paran Tarawally said a corporate future is one that sets clear goals and targets to be achieved with clear parameters for the public institution (Parliament), and it is divorced from the intrigues and antics of political machinations and influences.
On the role of the media in the propagation of the strategic annual plan and other policy implementation set out for the new year, Hon. Paran Trawally said ties between the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Administration of the Parliament of Sierra Leone had not been too healthy.
He continued that Parliament in its striving for openness and transparency has decided to resuscitate the involvement of the media as a key partner considering how pivotal the media is in disseminating accurate and pertinent information about Parliament to the public, which the House exists to serve.
The Clerk of Parliament also spoke about some general achievements, challenges and way forward, adding that parliament should be run in the interest of public and corporate life.
“We now have personnel that are bound by goals and parameters on how they should achieve them. These parameters will be used for consideration for promotion and other opportunities. We are taking parliament in a direction that it will deliver for the people of Sierra Leone. We are going to recruit a Director General who will be in charge of the corporate and administrative affairs of Parliament,” Hon. Paran explained.
He also talked about the administration of Parliament now having vibrant departments, with a second strategic and operational plan for 2021 along with a budget implementation plan.
“We have strengthened the female caucus, PBO and Centre for Research and Parliamentary Studies. With support from partners we are undertaking renovations that will make the Parliament building disabled friendly. We have achieved a lot,” the Clerk said.
Speaking on the challenges, Hon. Paran said the administration of the POSL “did not achieve the amendment and reviewing of the Standing Orders which was set out to be achieved in the year 2020. We were not able to create Job Descriptions; this is a struggle that must be overcome in 2021.”
He said, “Moving towards a corporate parliament means setting out targets and goals and a staff body with focus on who and what to do,” underscoring that the media has got a pivotal role in all of the POSL’s targeted areas.
It could be recalled that relations between the Parliament of Sierra Leone and the Press Gallery, the media umbrella body in Parliament, plummeted to almost its lowest ebb making way for negative attention following the publishing of a photo of a Gallery member who allegedly broadcast a controversial report on the attempted Pademba Road Prison break incident. The Parliamentary administration being worried about reputational damage, argued that the photo of the journalist was already in public with the caption ‘parliamentary worker’ and could not have done an adequate rebuttal enough without the said photo being attached to its press release.
The Press Gallery in return argued that such action from the Parliamentary administration then was unnecessary and had the likelihood of endangering their colleague’s life.
The Gallery’s counter release did not go down well with the Parliament administration who had expected its appendage (Press Gallery) to stand by it.
This rift went unabated with the Parliament of Sierra Leone suddenly instituting of a new press accreditation requirement for journalists, a move that the Guild of Newspaper Editors openly condemned as an attempt to curtail media freedom and parliamentary openness.
SLAJ, however, intervened to coil the Media and Parliament of Sierra Leone impasse but that was seemingly not enough for the Parliament to reverse all of its decisions, especially that of a ban on the operations of the Press Gallery despite in most cases granting journalists unfettered access to attend and cover all parliamentary committee and plenary sittings and proceedings.
The Press Gallery itself had not been reticent, as it recently established a Reformation Committee which among several other things is charged with the mandate of reviving ties with the Parliament Administration, settling internal power struggle, linking with other media regulatory bodies, among other things.
Speaking to the Parliamentary Update Group Sierra Leone (PUG-SL), a social media platform that uses Facebook.com and Whatsapp to bring parliament closer to the people of Sierra Leone, Hon. Paran said: “The media is definitely part of our agenda. For two years we have been struggling with the Press Gallery. This year, because we are moving corporate, the media is definitely going to be part of it because we want an open and publicised parliament. This is where the media sits in our strategic agenda for 2021. We are partners in this development and very soon you will see me calling the media to come and engage and see how we thrash out the gaps and difficulties in moving forward.”
Apparently, some parliamentary journalists in their initial reactions said the Clerk’s comment has ushered such a huge sigh of relief considering the ordeal that they went through in 2020, registering that, “We look forward to this reconciliation of the media and the administration of the Parliament for a win-win outcome for all in the interest of the people of Sierra Leone.”