By Tabora Bojang
The National Security Adviser, Momodou Badgie, has revealed that part of sequences in the ongoing security sector reform that aims to improve human and technical capacity of Gambian security officials in the new democracy, is to conduct investigations in to claims of presence of non-Gambians within the country’s security sector.
The former deputy chief of defence staff, now presidential adviser on security, was speaking at a press conference hosted by the National Security office, in collaboration with UNDP as part of activities in the ongoing security sector reform launched in The Gambia last year.
“This has been brought to our notice and it is captured in our final assessment report. The SSR process and its implementation will depend on the assessment report; this report is comprehensive and one of the basic sequences that we will soon start with is to conduct forensic auditing or census with support from international partners,” Badgie said.
”Investigations will soon start which will be able to give us lot of information, concerning the identities and compositions as well as the strength in various security sectors, that will guide us to get the final total strength of the security sector to be able to make some informed decisions. As of now, we are equally informed about those issues but as soon as we finish the forensic audit, I will be able to tell you the next step that will be taken,” he added.
According to him, the country’s security sector reform has means to make security provision more effective and accountable within the framework of democratic civil control, respect for human rights and orient strategies to change mindsets of the security personnel to adhere to norms of democracy and rule of law.
”We have security personnel who are law abiding, respect human rights and obey the law but equally we have those who we need to work on,” he noted.
