By Olimatou Coker
Amprofi Agyemang, the programme officer for Article 19-The Gambia office, has called on area councillors in the country to come up with a good communications strategy and be more open to the public.
“The Communication line and mechanism of the councils need to be strengthened,” he stated.
Speaking at a day’s consultative forum for 17 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Banjul, Kanifing and Brikama, organised by ARTICLE 19, Agyemang said: “If you do not have a good communication and reactive strategy, you will find that you may be doing good things but that will not be channeled down in term of information flow to the different people within the councils.”
The Gambia office is meant to discuss recommendations for newly elected municipal officials. It is also part of efforts aimed at fostering governance, accountability, access to information and citizen engagement.
He disclosed it was expected that these CSOs come up with recommendations for the newly elected council officials, in terms of good governance, access to information, and especially on accountability within the structure of local government system.
“This is a start of a program that we hope to have in next couple of weeks to bring these officials together and discuss the recommendations from today’s forum and another will be in other coming weeks. We will make presentations and get the feedback from them,” he explained.
He added: “Last year in December, we have a forum where we consulted stakeholders on access to information law in the country and that process is still ongoing.”
Advising the CSOs, he said: “They should try to do a lot more talking among
