By Binta Jaiteh
The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Local Government and Lands Thursday apologised to lawmakers over his Minister absent from the National Assembly to present the election Bill for scrutiny.
PS Buba Sanyang who represented Honorable Minister Musa Drammeh explained that that “the Honourable Minister is not in town, he is on official assignment to Niger where he’s representing the President at the inauguration ceremony of the new President of Niger. Due to that I could not get the information and also coupled with internal matters relating to it.”
“The committee should be assured that it will not happen (again), and as a Ministry we do abide by the laws of the National Assembly and we always answer to your calls,” he added.
Meanwhile, Honorable Musa Amul Nyassi , co-chair of the committee, said: “this is an obligation to us because is a National call and we live up to that,” added “as we all aware this is a responsibility on the joint committee, that to finalize our work.”
He described the election bill as one of the most controversial Bills to every Gambian inside and outside, “we don’t want to take things lightly, when Ministries are invited they should take up the responsibility to follow,” the calls/invitations.
“We want inclusiveness, Ministry of Regional and Lands have essential role being the parental body of all the councils. I do believe members will adhere and accommodate your explanations. We don’t want a re occurrence of this incident and is rather unfortunate there will be no progress as far as the scrutiny of this Bill is concern,” he said.
“This should be the two stakeholders that should be engaged and unfortunately, they are not prepared. Make sure the internal problem hampering the progress of the work of the committee is address by the various Ministries. The honourable members want to take stance because they are empowered by the 1997 constitution. It is contempt of the Assembly to be invited and didn’t appear,” he alarmed.
