By Ramatoulie Jawo
The Member of Parliament for Lower Saloum, Honourable Sainey Jawara on Thursday suggested the removal of the allocation of ‘furniture and maintenance’ from the budgets of the various ministries.
He said that the matter should be looked into saying, annually almost all the budgets of some ministries goes into furniture and maintenance of buildings which really affects the budget.
“For me, since I came to the Parliament here, the furniture that I found here is the same furniture we are still using. And if you look at the National Assembly budget, you will see where they allocate for furniture and maintenance,” he said.
The member for Lower Saloum added that some of the ministries in the Gambia are renting and that there is no need to allocate a budget for them to maintain a building that is not their own.
“Before allocating furniture and maintenance for ministries who are renting, I think we should give it to them (ministries) to build their own buildings, because for me, at the National Assembly here, I’m sitting on the same chair for six years now; and it’s not changed. So I think it’s better for us to cut this allocation for furniture and maintenance and save the money to put it into relevant budget lines because we are representing our people,” he stressed.
Jawara continued that since he came to the Parliament, he only saw them once painting the building saying, ‘charity begins at home. So they should cut that budget line for furniture and building maintenance and put it somewhere else’.
He made the remarks on Thursday during Parliament’s debate on the budget estimate for the 2023 fiscal year.