By Ramatoulie Jawo
Hon. Alhagie S. Darboe, Minority Leader of the National Assembly and Member for Brikama North, on Wednesday expressed concern over the limited number of ministers who were scheduled to appear before the Assembly on September 6, 2023.
“Honorable Speaker, I did made a comment on our Sixth Legislature page regarding the number of ministers that are scheduled to appear before us today. We have so many oral questions, and having only one minister scheduled for today. I want to know why that happened,” Hon. Darboe asked.
In response, Speaker Fa Bakary Tombong Jatta said that when he saw the Order Paper, he immediately asked the Table Office and the Office of the Clerk about it.
“You know, before they prepare the final Order Paper for the day, they have to get all the necessary documents for that session first. The other thing is that they must know that the Honorable Minister or whoever would be available to deliver his answers, his documents, or whatever. And according to the table office, they tried their best, but they could only succeed in getting the Honorable Minister for Foreign Affairs to be here this morning,” he told the NAM.
Speaker Jatta said that they are working on ways to prevent this from happening again. He said that they cannot have a session just for one minister to answer questions, no matter the reason, when the ministers have been informed in advance.
“When parliament calls, all other issues should be suspended to answer the call of parliament. Yes, as an institution, we would understand and accept certain situations where those called to parliament may not be available. I think it should be noted that Parliament should be given first priority in their schedules,” he said.
Hon. Sulayman Saho, the National Assembly Member for Central Badibou, urged the Speaker to send a stern message to the ministers about the issue.
“Because I could fully remember when members were absent, you cannot get a quorum from this house. You sent a strong message to the Gambian people about the condition of this parliament and their representatives. Now if ministers are not appearing and most of these questions have a time frame, they can be taken by events, so it will be useless to ask those questions. So I think you need to send a strong message to the executive to honor the invitation, particularly on questions and answer sessions,” Hon. Saho emphasized.
The National Assembly Member for Banjul South, Hon. Fatoumatta Touma Njie, said she is not going to blame the ministers but the Table Office for failing to make the ministers appear before them.
“If it was on the agenda, then we will blame them (the ministers) for not coming. I think if we have questions, especially questions that we know are very relevant and are necessary to be answered as soon as possible, we will need to include them in our agenda and summon them to come.
But we cannot sit here and blame the honorable ministers for not having them. Because they cannot come if they are not scheduled to come. But I think it should be the Office of the Clerk that should include them (Ministers) in the agenda,” she said.