Gambians urged to register families for future paybacks

 Office of the Vice President, the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Health alongside the Department of Community Development on Sunday began a twenty-day nationwide Public Information Campaign (PIC) on Gambia Social Registry under the auspices of the National Social Protection Secretariat.

The campaign spearheaded by the Department of Information Services (DOIS) is a World Bank funded project under the Office of the vice president.

This is the second phase of the nationwide campaign the task force members have embarked on and are expected to meet all regional governors and district chiefs to inform them about the campaign.

At a meeting held in Foni Berefet, Kanjabena and Kandonko, all in the West Coast Region, Ebrima Njie, deputy director at the Department of Information Services, gave a brief background to the campaign, highlighting the numerous paybacks that can be received by Gambians in the future by registering their household members.

The government of The Gambia, he added, has established an office called Gambia Social Registry (GAMSR) where all this registrations details will be kept in a database in case government or an NGO came up with a donation for the people of the country, there will be no problem in distributing that donation.

Deputy Director Njie therefore used the opportunity to call on Gambians to come out in their numbers and register their households as well as newly born babies, saying no one should be left behind.

“Let head of households get their families register to avoid the replication of the Government covid-19 food relief distribution, where other households received twice of the donation while other could not get a gift” he concluded.

 Malang Jawo at office of the Vice President and Mutharr Jallow at the Department of Information Services both called on heads of households to give out accurate information when GBOS visit their communities to collect their details.

The duo informed that even non-Gambians are eligible to register their households.  

“We are not saying there is donation coming but we want to have the details and keep it for upcoming assistances whereby everybody in the country will benefit from any assistance which comes for the people of the country”.

Ousman Mankara of Community Development underscored the importance of registering women, especially those who lost their husbands and they still have household responsibilities on their hands.

Mankara advised parents to avoid registering their daughters who are already marriage with their husbands.

Musa Jarju, Alkalo of Kandonko expressed gratitude to the government for coming up with such an idea, saying the initiative is very important for the people of the country.

He assured that his community would come out en-mass to register in the upcoming households survey.