By Landing Ceesay
The National Assembly Member for Sanneh Mentereng Constituency, Hon. Fatou Cham, during her contribution to the debate in the first public session of the National Assembly, called for gender equality in the nomination and selection of Chairpersons for National Assembly Committees.
“I want to raise a few things and one of them is gender equality. I think this issue needs to be looked at and it needs to be taken very seriously. I am appealing to the Selection Committee to look into this properly because going back to the voter registration, women formed the majority of the registered voters across the country. Women have participated a lot in voting for us in our election to the parliament. So when it comes to the chairing of the Committees, I think they should allow women to be chairpersons of these committees or some of the committees,”
The Sanneh Mentereng NAM also urged the Selection Committee to give chance to the newly elected National Assembly members to chair some of the Committees. She argued that if new members are not given the chance to lead the Committees and learn, they will not get the required experience.
“I remind you what the former Majority Leader of the Parliament, Hon. Kebba K. Barrow, the NAM for Kombo South, said; that when he first came to the Assembly, he was selected as the Majority Leader and a member of the ECOWAS Parliament without any prior experience in either role. So if you don’t allow us to start counting from one, just like you did, and learn to count to a hundred, then it means we will not have experience. I think that is not fair to the newly elected members as well,” – She said.
The sixth legislature under the leadership of Hon. Fabakary Tombong Jatta, commenced its first public session yesterday. The session started with correction and approval of members of the Committees, International Parliamentary Delegations, and Friendship Groups.
The nomination of members of various committees was moved and seconded with amendments.