By Arret Jatta
The National Assembly Member for Banjul North, Modou L Bah, told The Standard that the National Assembly’s decision to adjourn the budget speech session without debate was a bad decision.
“What happened on Monday in parliament about the adjournment of the budget speech without a debate was a bad decision made by the majority of the parliament,” given that “the budget is the second most important document as far as The Gambia is concerned”.
He explained: “It is rather unfortunate seeing a budget speech being made by the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs of the country and parliament decided not to debate and instead adjourned the debate. For me, I would say that it is unacceptable and it is something that we cannot encourage as a parliament.
“We were given days to review the entire budget speech and come back to parliament and debate it but unfortunately that didn’t happen due to the majority’s decision. We must talk about issues, especially issues that have to do with the budget so that Gambian people will know how the budget will impact them and also what are the things that we can do as a country to improve our budget in order to progress.
“I am urging parliament not to encourage such a practice because people need to know exactly why we are representing them and how we are representing them in parliament. So it is very important to encourage members to debate matters presented in parliament so that people will be aware of what is exactly going on and the decisions taken in parliament,” he concluded.
