By Ramatoulie Jawo
On Monday, June 19, National Assembly Members (NAMs) adopted the report on the oversight activities of the Select Committee on Local Government, Lands, Ombudsman, and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
The objective of the oversight report was to assess the number and types of projects in each region, receive updates on the ongoing council projects, identify challenges and provide a possible way forward for effective service delivery.
While presenting the report, Hon. Sulayman Jammeh, the Chairman of the Select Committee, said that it is against this backdrop that the committee embarked on a nationwide tour of institutions and Agencies under its purview in order to gather information.
Hon. Jammeh said the first phase of the visit took the committee to meet with the regional governors of the North Bank Region, Central River Region, Upper River Region, and Lower River Region.
Hon. Jammeh said that they also visited the regional offices of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the Provincial Area Councils in the respective regions. He said that a field visit was conducted to the project sites of the Provincial Area Councils to get an update on the status of their ongoing and completed projects, as well as the challenges that they are facing.
“Following thorough deliberation on the institutions and departments visited and, in addition to information received at the project sites visited the committee concludes that the institutions under its purview are committed to delivering quality service to the Gambian people,” he said.
Hon. Jammeh said the committee noted that their work is being challenged by policy gaps, weak revenue generation capacity, weak human resource capacity, and lack of awareness among the majority of Gambians about the nature and scope of the work of those institutions.