By Saio Marrah
After a month of sometimes acrimonious debates around the country the cybercrime bill today reached the committee stage of parliament for further scrutiny by the MPs.
Speaking at the second reading at the Freetown International Conference Centre which parliament is temporarily meeting on Thursday the 29th April, 2021, Hon. Mark Mahmoud Kaloko of the opposition APC, said the bill gives enormous powers to the Minister of Information and Communication without any room given for redress in the courts. He said such powers must remain with the courts otherwise the freedom of speech of the ordinary citizen will be severely affected.
Hon. Kaloko said those powers in the hands of the minister would “interfere with the privacy of the citizenry of this country and the bill does not have regulations that should have been brought to parliament together with bill for MPs can scrutinize”.
He also criticized the idea of the president being the Chairman of the proposed Cyber Council as well as the appointment of members of the council to look into issue relating to cybercrimes.
P.C. Bai Kurr Kanagbaro Sanka III of Tonkolili District, in his presentation called for the bill to incorporate the recommendations of professional groups like Bar Association, SLAJ University Lecturers and the Human Right Commission of Sierra Leone and urged Members of Parliament to assist the Legislative Committee with the necessary amendments.
Hon. Daniel Koroma of Koinadugu district pointed out that even though the bill highlighted 22 offences, but is no penalty for any of the offences noting that a law should always go with offences and penalties, but the Information and Communication Minister told parliament that those aspects were “deliberately left to be determined by the Law Officers Department”.
The Chairman of the Legislative Committee, Abdul Sulaiman Marray Conteh told parliament that the Cybercrimes Act “is very much needed the Information Technology and Communication (ITC) sector has enormous goods but there are bad sides as well”.
He urged his colleagues not to politicize the deliberations.
The minister of Information and Communication, Mohamed Rado Swaray, while addressing the concern of the MPs, said the bill will not only protect privacy and tackle financial fraud, but it will also protect the moral dignity of the people.
In his concluding said the bill will remain in the committee stage until such a time that the Committee will be able to do a good job with all proposed amendment.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online 30/04/21
