The Hansard

The Hansard is the official report of the Parliamentary Debates. It is an edited, verbatim report in the first person of all speakers alike, with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious reporting and grammatical mistakes corrected, but leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning or illustrates the argument.

The Department of Hansard in the National Legislative Assembly comprises of the following sections:

The Recording and Broadcasting Section
Is responsible for recording of the Parliamentary debates onto audio and videocassettes. It is also responsible for the control and operation of the Public Address System in the Chamber and the living broadcasting of Parliamentary proceedings.

The Transcribing and editorial Section
Is responsible for the transcription of Parliamentary debates from the audio cassettes to digital format which is reproduced in both hard and soft copy. It also occasionally transcribes evidence of key witnesses who appear before investigation Committees of Parliament on request.

The Section is also responsible for editing of Parliamentary debates, which entails correcting obvious reporting mistakes, errors of fact, eliminating redundancies and repetitions, but leaving out nothing that adds to the meaning. If Hansard makes a serious error, the Member concerned contacts the Editor who in turn arranges for a corrigendum.

The Printing and Publication Section
Is responsible for the printing of the a hard copy of Hansard and for the electronic publishing of a soft copy on the Parliamentary website, and Parliamentary Internet.

The Section also prints other Parliamentary publications like program booklets, Information brochures, Committee reports etc.