Civil rights advocacy group has staged a peaceful protest outside National Assembly building in Banjul on the theme “Occupy National Assembly” demanding the withdrawal of D1.12billion Supplementary Appropriation Bill tabled by finance minister, Mambury Njie.
Organisers said the rationale behind the protest at the gates of the National Assembly of The Gambia, aimed among others to expressed their disappointment and anger towards the tabling and discussion of the supplementary appropriation bill, saying it’s unconstitutional, unacceptable and irrational.
“We are here to protest against the supplementary appropriation bill and the 2019 budget. The supplementary appropriation bill tabled by the finance minister is unconstitutional and unacceptable as such bill must not be more than 1% of the budget and here we are seeing D1.12billion dalasis been tabled just three weeks before the end of 2019 fiscal year. To us is unacceptable and an insane move from the minister,” said Raffie Diab member of the #OCCUPYNATIONALASSEMBLY.
Diab a right activist who confounded the #Gambia Has decided movement, which participated in eventual forcing of the then Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh into exile.
Diab, is a key member of the #Defadoye movement that calls on the attention of The Gambia government to respect law and order after three environmental activists were gunned down in Faraba Banta environmental mining protest.
“We are here to protest against the 2019 appropriation budget, which members were only given 14 days to scrutinize it. This is not possible, members cannot scrutinized such an important national document in just 14 days, so we are calling on the state to give more time to the members of the national assembly to be given more time to do their job for adequate and thoroughly scrutinized this very important bill before it is been passed,” he told The Voice.
According to him, the old tactics employed by the former government to milk Gambians money will not be accepted any more, adding that citizens are ready to defend their rights when necessary.
“I will be very disappointment if this bill is allowed to be passed by the national assembly members. They should not allow this to happen and if they do we will be very disappointed with them because they are in the assembly for the citizens and the citizen’s voice needs to be heard,” Diab noted.
He said they have not been harassed by the police intervention unit and this he attributed it to the awareness of the police high command, who realized that in any democracy, citizens have the rights to protest, adding that the only disappointment he has with the police is that they don’t allowed the protesters to enter the national assembly complex.
Tony F Mendy, a law student of the University of The Gambia and a member of the organisers, said he is very disappointed with the attitudes of the security who denied them (protesters) from entering the parliament.
“Am very disappointed that the securities are pushing and chasing them away from the premises of the assembly. We are only here as citizens to protest against the supplementary appropriation bill and the 2019 proposed budget but the police are blocking us entry into the Parliament,” the law student vent his anger to The Voice.
Mendy said the securities must all the time understand that the government is the peoples government and based on such citizens have the rights to protest against any bill that is not in their interest, adding that such interest includes the interest of the securities and every other Gambian.
Alieu Ceesay also law student at the UTG said, he is at the assembly to protest against unconstitutionality of the supplementary appropriation bill that is just before the members.
“The timing of this supplementary appropriation bill is very wrong and we cannot give chance to our lawmakers to passed such bill. This is why we are here to express our anger to parliamentarians so that they can understand our plight and take it into consideration before they do anything that will backfire on the citizens and that when such a bill is approved by the members it would have serious consequences” Alieu angrily told The Voice.
He called on The Gambia government to always do things at the right time in line with the constitution and best practices, noting g that this is the only ways The Gambia can move and towards achieving its developmental goals.
However, barely few hours into the debate on the bill, members of the national assembly are said to have rejected the said supplementary appropriation bill presented by Mambury Njie minister for finance and economic affairs.
Sources closed to this media said after a heated debate, assembly members rejected the bill base on the fact that the timing of the bill is not in consonant with the constitution, noting g that the amount requested is also more than what is allowed by The Gambian constitution.
Author: Kebba Ansu Manneh