By Sariba Manneh
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Mr. Ousman Bah, has told the National Assembly that currently they don’t have a holistic policy specific to Critical National Infrastructure and Protection.
Minister Bah said this in response to the question put to him by the member for Upper Saloum, Hon. Mbowe, on Wednesday 3rd July 2024, during the question and answer session with the Communication and Digital Economy Minister.
Hon Mbowe further asked Minister Bah to tell the assembly about the availability of policy on the identification and protection of critical national ICT infrastructure.
In response, Bah said the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy is working on formulating critical information on infrastructure protection called CIIT policy regulation.
“This is being done through consultation under the World Bank-funded West Africa Digital Integration programme (WADI),” he said.
Bah stated that the Project will be delivered in consultation with relevant stakeholders in the ecosystem including the Central Bank and PURA respectively.
“Meanwhile, we have a national cyber security policy for 2022-2026 that has critical information infrastructure protection as its fourth pillar,” he said.
Asked why it took so long for the government to come up with this policy knowing the importance of this critical infrastructure protection, Minister Bah responded that the policy required competent knowledgeable consultants to conduct such a policy and there were no resources or funds earlier to do so. He added that now they have the WADI project which they have included in the national infrastructure.
Minister Bah said the policy will be implemented before the end of the year and it will include the private sector.
