By Awa Macalo
The director general of the State Intelligence Services has said that the agency has not arrested or detained any individual since the new government came to power.
Ousman Sowe said the staff have undergone series of professional trainings and reforms.
“Five years on, we have gone very far in changing the dynamic and the security architecture of the country. As a service, we task ourselves to improve and reform on the operational capability and activities in tending with human rights observations. We also endeavored to improve our relationship both domestically and internationally. We also task ourselves on the institutional strengthening of SIS as an important institution for national security management, national peace and harmony, and national reconciliation,” he explained.
DG Sowe said the SIS is stronger and much more organized now with the right platform to meet its national security mandate.
“Our credibility has hugely improved and I think every Gambian to the extent will attest to the fact that no one has said it’s SIS whose report has caused this damage to the country since the past five years. As far as intelligence service is concerned, credibility is a sine qua non. The focus of the service has been on our core mandate and that is intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination.”
“Being focused on these mandates has kept the service very busy over this period to the extent that we don’t use handcuffs. In the past five years, we have not arrested or no has SIS detained anybody across the country,” he added.
“We have tasked ourselves to collect and analyse information across all sectors of activities. From national security, defense, intelligence, organized crimes and so forth with the paradigm shifted from state-centred security to human security,”Mr Sowe added.
He was speaking in Banjulinding as SIS hosted Nigerian students on climate change and conflict study tour.
