By Aji Fatou Faal
Parliamentarians at the National Assembly Wednesday unanimously considered and adopted two re-establishment of an inter-parliamentary friendship group between the National Assembly of the Republic of the Gambia, National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
Tabling the motion, Hon. Kebba K. Barrow, Majority Leader and NAM for Kombo South revealed that this motion seeks to reactivate this inter-parliamentary friendship group and to make it more vibrant to represent the interest of the National Assembly of the Gambia through the already existing cordial relationship between the Gambia and Turkey.
He then recalled that there was an inter-parliamentary friendship group between the National Assembly of the Gambia and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey during the previous Assembly (4th Legislative).
However, he noted that this friendship group was dormant for the entire five year parliament term of the former parliament.
According to him, the re-establishment of this inter-parliamentary friendship group between the two legislatures will enhance pragmatic cooperation and render support to each other in key areas such as development cooperation, legislative support, expertise, governance, technical assistance, and further boost people-to-people relations among others.
Hon. Barrow stated that the two countries have been great friends and cooperating since independence, on all sectors of the economy such as agriculture, technical assistance, ICT, infrastructure and tourism.
He further revealed that the mandate of the friendship group is to foster inter-parliamentary relations and to further contribute to the development of the bilateral and cooperative relations and the group shall serve as the linkage between the two legislatures on all cooperation and support.
“The friendship group shall consist of a chairperson and eight other members; the membership to the committee shall be nominated by the Committee of Selection”, he disclosed.
In a similar development, Hon. Alhajie Mbowe, NAM for Upper Saloum opined that the Gambia and the People’s Republic of China share many things in common despite their geographical boundaries. “Notable among these, was their excellent historic diplomatic and development cooperation ties”.
He noted that Speaker of the National Assembly of the Gambia, Hon. Mariam Jack-Denton, led a high powered delegation to visit China from 18th -23rd September 2017 at the invitation of her counterpart, Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress.
