Stakeholders review National Records Service Act 1993

The 2-day synergy organised by the National Records Service (NRS) and funded by EU-Technical Assistance through Public Finance Management (PFM)Directorate of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs was held at Metzy Residence Hotel. 

Bartholomew Marong, Director of National Records Service (NRS) said the NRS was established by an Act of Parliament in 1993.

“The Act mandated the NRS to manage all forms of public records from their creation to ultimate disposal or permanent preservation as archives,” the NRS boss added.

According to Mr. Marong, prior to the coming of the Act, The Gambia inherited record keeping systems from Britainwhich were designed to serve small bureaucracies.

The systems remained in place for many years andoutlived their usefulness and needed to be replaced in order to reflect the growth of modern government functions, he added.

He equally stated that the validation of the Revised National Records Service Act 1993 follows a robust set of discussions, consultations, reviews by a Records Management Expert (Andrew Griffins)5 years ago.

“Computers were used in the early 1990s but Government records were mainly in paper form and were filed in manual systems maintained by registries (since renamed Records Offices),” the NRS boss also stated. 

Today he continued, manual systems continue to be used for policy and administrative files but official business is now also carried out using computers and electronic mail. However, he said much of the information critical to Government operations is held in data files.  

According to Mr. Marong, the NRS is currently implementing an Electronic Records Management System (ERMS) to address the need for systems, policies and standards to manage electronic and digital records.  

He called for the strengthening of the NRS and the National Records and Archives Committee so that the NRS can ensure compliance with Government-wide policies and standards.

He pointed out the significant effort put into the development of the document, including the comprehensive consultations that were facilitated by the NRS team.

He thanked the EU-Technical Assistance through the Public Finance Management (PFM) Directorate of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs for funding the activity.