By Binta Jaiteh
Honourable Yaya Menteng Sanyang, the National Assembly member for the LatriKunda-Sabiji has bemoaned the exploitation meted out on labourers by both local and foreign investors saying he will not be part of the members to ratify a document if it is not subjected to the right committee for advice.
Speaking during the debate between the members to consider and ratify the instrument for the amendment of the Constitution of the International Organization 1986, Honourable Sanyang said as a Ministry, before going to ratify an International Labour Organization instrument (our) labour act should be reviewed.
“I urged the Minister from here to also look at our labour act to make it a document. As a country, we have been relying on International commitment and is high time we regained our balance. When we ratify and domesticate this instrument, their implementation should be taken seriously but at the end of the day the Assembly has a role to play,” he said.
Honourable Dawda Jallow, Attorney General and Minister for Justice said, in 1986 the International Labour Organization conference discussed and adopted an instrument of the amendment and proposed changes that affected 11 of the 40 articles within the constitution of the International Labour Constitution.
In summary, the composition, and governance of the governing body of the office, the procedure for the appointment of the Director General.
If the 1986 amendment labour enters into force number of governing bodies under the constitution will increase from 56 to 112 and the manner of their allocation will be affected under the 1986 amendment Director General of the ILO will continue to be appointed by the governing body but the appointment will be submitted to the ILO Labour Conference approval.
However, Jallow said that the 1986 amendment proposes changes to article 36 of the constitution covering features amended and set out voting and ratification requirements related to this specific consideration, the adoption of any fundamental purposes of organization, the permanent establishment of the organization, composition, and functions of the organs and appointment and responsibilities of the Director General.
Omar Jato Jammeh, the member for Janjanbureh said this is timely looking at the condition of the Gambian workers, it seems to be sympathetic in reality and as much as they are considering amending an International document, he wants to believe that it is also important to look at the Gambia labour act.
“What I have seen in this document is that we have been deceived by numbers and looking at the increment of representation from 50 to 52 to 200 and 12 from Africa or the general membership and it will be important if the representation is segmented to know the labour market representation and the Gambian young people,” he added.
He said the Ministry of Justice should adjust the way they approach the Parliament before documents are broad forward to the Assembly, which he said is important for the such documents to be submitted to the respective committees for due consideration.
Honourable Sulayman Saho, a member of Badibou Central said that ILO has been in existence since the time of memorial as far as the time of the first world war in 1919, the question that should be asked is what is the position of Gambia as far as ILO is a concern and how to tackle the issue of unemployment, right of workers to make sure that they don’t become beggars.