Fabakary Tombong Jatta, Speaker of the National Assembly
Public Statement
The Edward Francis Small Centre hereby registers its unreserved condemnation of the Speaker of the National Assembly and the President of the Republic for failing to uphold the Constitution in regard to the tabling of the 2025 budget estimates. Following an amendment of Section 152(1) of the Constitution in 2023, the President is mandated to cause the Minister of Finance to lay the budget estimates before the National Assembly at least 60 days before the end of the year.
The proposal for the amendment was placed by the National Assembly Member for Upper Saloum Alagie Mbow. In his reasons for the amendment, Mr. Mbow said it was meant to give NAMs more time to scrutinize the estimates and conduct more consultations on the estimates with stakeholders. This means for the 2025 budget estimates, the latest time for the Minister of Finance Seedy Keita to lay before the National Assembly was 1st November 2024. It is therefore a blatant violation of the Constitution for the Finance Minister to instead lay the estimates today, November 15, i.e., two weeks after the constitutionally mandated time frame.
Instead of holding the Minister accountable for violating the Constitution, the Speaker Fabakary Tombong Jatta decided to ask the Minister to rather apologize to Members. The decision of the Speaker followed a motion by the Minority Leader Alhagie S Darboe of Brikama South to reject the draft estimates on account of its unconstitutionality. The EF Small Centre is therefore deeply outraged that the Speaker and Members of the National Assembly would accept to have Minister Keita apologize instead of holding him accountable as per Section 75 of the Constitution.
Both the Executive and the Legislature have the primary obligation to abide by and defend the Constitution which they swore to uphold in their oaths of office. There is no provision in the Constitution that allows for apologies by NAMs and members of the Executive for their violation of the Constitution. Hence the Speaker and NAMs have set a dangerous precedent which will only normalize underperformance by the President and Ministers as well as condone their violation of the Constitution hence encourage bad governance and a culture of impunity in the country.
The Speaker, the President, NAMs and Ministers must recognize that they do not have the liberty to underperform, abuse their office or violate the Constitution for any reason. Rather they are required to perform their functions diligently in line with the Constitution at all times. We wish to therefore register our strongest protest at this blatant disregard of the Constitution by members of the Executive and the Legislature. For this reason, we will consider taking appropriate measures to hold them accountable.
In the Spirit of Edward Francis Small, For The Gambia Our Homeland
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Madi Jobarteh