By: Binta Jaiteh
Honourable Muhammed Kanteh, a lawmaker for the Busumbalaconstituency has challenged His Excellency President AdamaBarrow to present the original draft constitution of 2020 to the National Assembly for scrutiny.
In an interview with this reporter, Honourable Kanteh said the draft constitution of 2024 is a reflection of the executive’s idea of how ordinary citizens remain inferior under their supremacy.
The executive draft is carefully drafted to suit their requirements over the subject without an accountability mechanism to check their excessive authority compared to the citizen’s draft constitution 2020.
He said most of the relevant progressive provisions for accountability provided in the citizen’s draft constitution 2020 are removed or re-drafted.
He claimed that chapter 5 of the draft constitution on leadership and integrity was removed saying this has demonstrated the executive approach to encourage corruption and use of executive directives.
According to him the reason for the rebirth of the draft constitution is to enable the sitting President to further stand for election for more terms and, also to maintain the powers vested in him in the new draft constitution to appoint Ministers without any confirmation from the National Assembly.
“As a representative of the people, I think this is unfair and unacceptable to the people”, Honourable Kanteh queried.
He pointed out that the government should respect the decisions of citizens and make sure that the people’s concerns and challenges are addressed. The draft constitution, he said, should reflect the needs of the people because as a country every citizen needs a document that will guide them on how to govern the country to the right path.
Member for Foni Jarrol, Honourable Kebba Tumanding Sannehalluded to this saying the draft constitution is a national document and not a political property.
He affirmed that the draft constitution set to be tabled by the government to the National Assembly is meant to serve the individual interest of the government.
But he disclosed that members of the NA will reject it outright because “It should serve the interest of the taxpayers but not individual interest” Sanneh enunciated.
Despite the ongoing speculations and queries about the draft constitution ready for the gazette, he said “I didn’t check the draft constitution thoroughly but I observed that important issues have been removed,” Honourable Madi Ceesay for SerrekundaWest said.
According to him, there are lots of variances as far as the old and the new constitutions are concerned, while explaining that at the moment his opinion will be premature due to not thoroughly scrutinizing the draft and he decided to reserve other comments till further notice.
For his part, a lawmaker for the Wuli East constituency, Hon Suwaibou Touray said looking at a document like the Draft Constitution, we should focus on the provisions to see if they will advance or enhance the country’s democracy or not and compare it to the 1997 Constitution to see which one is more progressive as far the country’s democracy is concerned.
“This will help us to decide whether there is a need to brainstorm or even waste resources to seek the opinions of the people on it. Now there are two provisions in the gazetted draft which are important because since we attained Republican status, we have advocated for them to be inserted in the previous constitutions but governments have given deaf ears to it”, he explained more.
The lawmaker disclosed that the term limit is important because it aims to curtail overstaying in power which can create instability for the country.
“It is my conviction that this document despite its flaws and the lack of consultation with the stakeholders and people, can still be interrogated or scrutinized by the National Assembly through consultations to ensure certain absolute adjustments be made”, he lamented.
