By: Kebba AF Touray, Reporting from ECOWAS Parliament, Abuja
The Republic of the Gambia has been selected to serve as Chairman of the Micro Economic Policy and Economic Research, as well as the Industry and Private Sector Committees of the ECOWAS Parliament.
The development emerged during the committee sitting of Saturday, 6th April at the Community Parliament, and was adopted at the sitting of Saturday during the just concluded inaugural session of the Sixth Legislature of the ECOWAS Parliament.
The development was unveiled at the said sitting by Hon. Sulaiman Ndoye, the Senegalese representative, who doubles as the Chairman of the Selection Committee, while tabling the draft report of the Selection Committee of the parliament.
The selection committee is composed of a total of 11 members from across the member states, who sat over the selections of the members of the Sixth Legislature, to the various committees of the community parley.
He told the parliament, “The Chairs of the committee on micro economic policy and research policy and the Industry and Private Sector is the Republic of the Gambia”.
He reported that 14 standing committees have been established at the community parley, such as committees on health, energy, peace and security, public account and audit, social welfare, gender and children, agriculture, administration, mines, industry and private sector, telecommunication, legal affairs, trade, customs and free movement, micro finance and economic policy among others.
The members of the selection committee were selected during Friday’s session which commenced with the selection of members to the selection committee of the community parley.
As indicated by the Acting Speaker, Barau the committee traditionally is composed of heads of delegations of the member states.
After the selection into the various committees of the parliament, the sitting was adjourned to the following day Saturday 6th April 2024.
Convening the sitting of Saturday, the regional representatives during the sitting, considered and adopted the draft reports of the ad-hoc committee on selection on the composition of members of the ECOWAS Parliament committees.
This selection is in accordance with of article 25 (D) of the Supplementary Act relating to the enhancement of the powers of the parliament and subject to the proposals for the composition of the standing committees, the committee on selection responsible for assisting the bureau in the selection of members of the standing committees of the Sixth Legislature, was constituted by the plenary at its sitting on the 5th of April 2024.
Hon Ndoye presented the report before the bureau of the ECOWAS Parliament for consideration and adoption.
Like all other parliamentary procedures, the report was subjected to consideration by the members during, which the regional lawmakers made some observations, which the representatives proposed for those observations be corrected.
The Vice Chair of the said committee on selection, Hon. Snowe Jr, responded to the issues detected by the members, and assured that the issues observed will be corrected.
Subsequently, the report was adopted, and it will now be used as the working tool of the ECOWAS Parliament.
Next to be tabled was the report of the rules and procedures committee, but the Acting Speaker proposed that a motion is moved to ensure that the current rules and procedures be used, pending the adoption of the rules of procedures of the current Sixth Legislature.
This as advanced by the Acting Speaker, is necessitated by the fact that the parliament won’t have the ample time to efficiently peruse through the report due to its bulk nature.
As a result, the suggestion advanced by acting Speaker, was moved as a motion and seconded by the representatives of the member states.
Consequently, the report of the procedure committee will now wait until next session for members to have adequate time to scrutinize and be able to consider and adopt the report, so that it can now be used as the working tool of the 6th legislature of the community parliament.
