By Kemeseng Sanneh
The sitting of the Public Enterprises Committee (PEC) of the National Assembly on Monday October 29th 2018, could not proceed with the presentation of the Asset Management Recovery Corporation’s (AMRC) Annual Activity Report and Financial Statement for the year ended 1st January to 31st December 2015 and 2016 respectively, due to the absence of the Corporation’s Board Chairperson and members, during the session.
After the usual introduction, PEC Chairperson Halifa Sallah asked AMRC’s Managing Director Momodou B Jallow, on why the Board Chairperson and members were absent. In his response MD Jallow informed members that the Board was dissolved two months ago by the President.
PEC Chairperson Sallah emphasized that the trend of Board Chairpersons and Members getting absent at PEC sessions is becoming challenge, and sited Section 175 (2) of Constitution as being very clear on how public enterprises should be governed; that members of the Board of directors or other governing body of a Public Enterprise, shall be appointed by the President after consultation with the Public Service Commission, and shall be selected from amongst persons of integrity, competence and maturity in judgment.
Hon. Saikou Marong, a member of PEC emphasized that a Public Enterprise that appeared before them, were sent packing because of the absence of a Board.
‘‘We have consulted and adopted a resolution for the AMRC to present their activity report and financial statement for the years ended 31st December 2015 and 2016 respectively. Section 175 (2) of the Constitution makes the board of directors the governing authority of Public Enterprises and charges the president to appoint its members in consultation with the Public Service Commission (PSC),’’ he said.
In the same vein, Chairperson Sallah summed up that PEC is mandated to receive activity reports and financial statements from no other authority order than the governing authority of a public enterprise; that the vacancy in the office of the Board of directors of the AMRC, has divested it from the functions of being governed by authority; that PEC therefore considers it to be outside of their mandate, to consider the activity report and financial statement of the AMRC, by virtue of the absence of a legitimate governing authority, and resolves that the proposal for AMRC to present their activity report and financial statement for the years ended 31st December 2015 and 2016 respectively, be suspended; that the Committee further resolves that the President of the Republic should fulfil his Constitutional mandate to appoint a board of directors to govern AMRC, to make it feasible for the Corporation to present their activity report and financial statement as required by Section 175 (5) of the Constitution.
