By: Kebba AF Touray
Mr. Buba Sanyang, Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Regional Government and Lands, has apologized to lawmakers for his ministry’s failure to appear before the joint committee on IEC and Human Rights and Constitutional Matters of the National Assembly.
He made this apology last week Thursday when he appeared before the said joint committee, which is engaging relevant stakeholder to obtain their inputs on the election bill 2021.
Sanyang said the failure was due to some internal problems and as the permanent secretary he has taken full responsibility of the matter.
“I will also like to inform the august Assembly that the Honorable Minister was not in town. He was representing the President in the inauguration and swearing in of the new President of Niger. So, the information did not get to him on time,” he said, adding when the minister returned he could not communicate to him because there were some internal problems.
“To this effect, as the administrator of the Ministry, I apologize to the committee and that is the reason why the Honorable Minister was unable to be here because he was equally informed when the Speaker called him to notify him of this meeting.”
Sanyang however reminded the assembly that the ministry has always been responsive to the calls of the assembly, including the minister whenever the need arises.
“We have always been here when we are called. We will continue to respond to the calls of the Assembly because this is a national call and it is an obligation on us,” he said.
Musa Amul Nyasi, Co-chair of the joint committee, said they are supposed to finalize their work and by June they are expected to present their reports to the plenary during the ordinary session.
Nyasi said the election bill is important to the Gambian citizens both within and outside of the country and in a bid to ensure all-inclusiveness in amending the bill, the ministry is key in the process.
“We don’t want to take things lightly and we want to make sure that when ministries are invited, they take up the responsibility of appearing before the committee to attain all-inclusiveness that we so desire,” he said.
Nonetheless, Nyasi said the aforesaid ministry has been very cooperative and complying when it comes to appearing before their select committee.
“I want to believe that the members will accommodate your apology, with the expectation that a recurrence of what happened will not reoccur,” he said.
He told Sanyang that the joint committee will reschedule and communicate to them to appear, while urging him to ensure that they address the internal problems that are hampering the progress of the work of the committee.
