Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698079236032.pdf (Sierra Leone)
OAU DRIVE, TOWER HILL, FREETOWN P A R L I A M E N T A R Y D E B A T E S ____ [HANSARD] ______________ OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT SECOND SESSION-SECOND MEETING TUESDAY, 4TH FEBRUARY, 2020 SESSION – 2019/2020 OAU DRIVE, TOWER HILL, FREETOWN P A R L I A M E N T A R Y D E B A T E S ____ [HANSARD] ______________ OFFICIAL HANSARD REPORT VOLUME: II NUMBER: 33 Second Meeting of the Second Session of the Fifth Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone.
Proceedings of the Sitting of the House Held Tuesday, 4th February, 2020.

2 CONTENTS I. PRAYERS II.

RECORD OF VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY SITTING HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 18TH DECEMBER, 2019 III.

LAYING OF PAPERS HON.

SIDIE M. TUNIS THE LEADER OF GOVRNMENT BUSINESS GIFT FROM THE CHINESE EMBASSY IN SIERRA LEONE AS A SUPPORT FOR CAPACITY BUILDING OF THE PARLIAMENT OF SIERRA LEONE IV.

MOTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND PUBLIC SERVICES PROPOSER: HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA SECONDED: HON.


AMADU KANU BE IT RESOLVED: THAT THE ELEVENTH REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE BE ADOPTED BY THE HOUSE AND THAT THE RECOMMENDATIONS CONTAINED THEREIN BE APPROVED.
3 THE CHAMBER OF PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SIERRA LEONE Official Hansard Report of the Proceedings of the House _____________________________________________________________ SECOND SESSION – SECOND MEETING OF THE FIFTH PARLIAMENT OF THE SECOND REPUBLIC _____________________________ Tuesday, 4th February, 2020.

I. PRAYERS [The Table Clerk, Mr Alimamy Lincoin Bangura, Read the Prayers] [The House met at 10:40 a.m. in Parliament Building, Tower Hill, Freetown] [The Speaker, Hon.
Dr Chernor Abass Bundu in the Chair] The House was called to Order 4 Suspension of S. O.

5[2] THE SPEAKER: Are the Technicians ready for the House to commence its work?

I don’t think you are, just look at what is happening around, all the mikes are blinking.
Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo, I see you are standing up, but before I give you the Floor; I want to take this opportunity to welcome the Leaderships of all Parties represented in Parliament and all Members of Parliament back to Parliament, as this is our first sitting in the year 2020, a year that holds out promise of new things happening.

I do hope with God’s guidance, we shall do what is right and what is just and try to match the expectations of the Public to whom we are accountable.
So welcome back, I hope you are all well rested and ready to embark upon this year’s deliberations!

Yes, Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Thank you very much Mr Speaker, for welcoming us to this Noble House.

Mr Speaker, I would want to start all be it a very brief presentation with a slumber statement that has to do with humanity itself.
The Corona Pandemic facing China Mr Speaker has threatened to wipe out part of the world, the Radio and Television Broadcasts all over the world seem to suggest that this pandemic is taking over very, very important places in the world and therefore, it has become a very serious challenge for humanity itself.
Mr Speaker, we on this part of the House and indeed our friends on the other side will follow suit, I would be very, very happy to note that something is been done to address the issue of the Pandemic.

But having stated that, it is still a serious matter, millions of people are threatened, thousands of people are already in Hospitals and therefore, we in Sierra Leone should associate ourselves with the difficulties that are confronting the Chinese people.
We in Sierra Leone are aware of the fact that the People’s Republic of China has been a great friend of this country, when we too were afflicted by the Ebola Epidemic, the Chinese played a major role by sending Battalions of their Soldiers and other important Technical people to address the issue of the Ebola in Sierra Leone, and they did it very well.
5 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, today they are confronted by a difficult situation, and I think we as Sierra Leoneans should express our concern to the Chinese people, to inform and to tell them that we feel sorry for them, we feel part and parcel of the Pandemic that has plagued them, and we are praying that this disease disappear as soon as possible.
Mr Speaker, humanity itself is total, the Chinese and the Sierra Leoneans are the same people, apart from the fact that history has it, that it is Sierra Leone that moved the Motion to take China back to the United Nations, and apart from the fact that the Chinese have always been very helpful to us, by awarding us scholarships, food and other items.

It is also important to note that as human beings, we should express our concerns about what has confronted them today.
We want to use this opportunity on this side of the House and my own Party, and possibly our friends on the other side to say we feel very, very sad about what is happening in China and to wish President Xi Jinping the luck that he deserves to make sure, that this problem is addressed in China.

Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for the sentiment that he has just expressed, I am sure he speaks not only for himself and for his Party, but for the entire House [Applause].

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, to toe the line of my colleague on the other side, China is a friend in need, so is a friend indeed.

I ask with your leave for all to stand with grief for the People’s Republic of China to observe a minute of silence.
THE SPEAKER: And we do so in solidarity with the Government and People’s Republic of China.

[Silence Observed] HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you.

May the souls of the faithful departed rest in perfect peace, and those who are afflicted presently admitted at various Hospitals in Wuhan City, we pray that God provide the vaccine that will stop this menace in China.

Thank you Mr Speaker.


6 Mr Speaker, Honourable members, I do not want to go too far, because my colleague on the other side had expressed so much what China has done for us during the Ebola crisis, in terms of development, even when we are in Governance they gave us vehicles, and they are still supporting us with scholarships, in terms of Government Flagship Programmes, so I just want to say thank you Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo.
We are in strong solidarity as Government with the People’s Republic of China and we believe we cannot give them anything, because we are coming from a third world country, but we can always remember them in prayers.

We will call on our Churches and Mosques to pray for the People’s Republic of China so that this virus will have a cure or a vaccine to stop it.

When we listen to the news, you will see that the virus is really scary.
It has mutating features that is very difficult to detect, but we pray that God will handle this situation in China.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo, thank you very much for bringing us to this stage and bringing Sierra Leone to a speed for remembering our people of China.

Thank you sir.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Dr Kandeh K. Yumkella.

HON.
HON.

DR KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: Mr Speaker, distinguished colleagues, we also express our deep sympathy and solidarity with the people of China, we hope that they can contain the problem and we hope that our prayers will help them solve the issues that they are faced with, and we pray for the souls of those who have departed to rest in peace.
But that begs the question Mr Speaker; could we be briefed by our Minister of Health at some point about what measures we are putting in place to also protect the people of Sierra Leone?

We are very vulnerable here, so we just want to know what measures our Government has put in place.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, remember that we have gone through such a pandemic before, are our safety systems in place?
One of the things some of us are 7 concerned about, they say the virus takes two weeks to incubate, so just using the thermometer at the Airport may not be enough.

Thank you very much.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for his concern, indeed he is quite right that the country ought to be told about the measures the Government is putting in place to ensure that the virus is contained and equally and most importantly we have our own nationals in the Republic of China.
We would also want to know what measures Government is taking to protect the lives of those nationals who are within the territory of the People’s Republic of China at the present time, and what other measures are contemplated to ensure that the virus is contained, very similar to the containment that this country introduced during the period we were afflicted by the Ebola Virus.
I think it will be an appropriate time for the Leader of Government Business to ask for the Floor before we rise for this sitting to inform us about what the Government is contemplating.

We would await the response of the Leader of Government Business at the appropriate time, but in the main time we shall continue with today’s proceedings.

HON.

DAINEL B. KOROMA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


Mr Speaker as today is been the first sitting in the year 2020, and taken into consideration the provision of the Standing Orders with specific reference to S.O.

72[b], it is abundantly clear that Parliament regulates itself whenever the need arises and as Members of Parliament, this year has been declared by our Government as a year of performance, and if there is anything that will hinder that performance, we will not accept it.
We must support His Excellency the President, by putting this country forward, so we are ready to perform.

And we will not tolerate any hindrance to that performance, so on that note Mr Speaker, subject to the powers contained in S.O.72 [b], I move that this Parliament go to Committee Room One to sort out certain issues as we regulate ourselves and ensure we fulfil the President’s dream of performing in this 2020.

That is my submission Sir.


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Daniel Koroma for his observation, and I would like to bring to the attention of the House that before we came into the Chambers, the Honourable Daniel Koroma approached me in my Chambers on this very 8 matter, and it is my understanding that there is consensus around the House, if that is so, we shall rise and retire to Committee Room One after the sitting [Noisy Applause].

Well I do not know who is correct.

HON.


MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you very Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: I have not given you the Floor yet, so hold on.

I want to address the Honourable Daniel Koroma, not that I am putting him to task no!

Maybe there was some failure of communication between us.
My understanding was when he first came to my Chambers, the impression I got was that indeed the consensus was that a meeting in Committee Room One should precede the formal meeting in the Well this morning and I said to him well I would have prefer the other way around, but if that is the consensus I am ready.

I am ready to go along.


Later on, the Honourable Member came back to my Chambers and said to me, I have consulted and I think it is your own idea that seem to have taken sway, that we shall go into the Chambers and sit and then retire to Committee Room One after the sitting, so unless I misunderstood the Honourable Member, that is my understanding then and now.
So I want to be guided here, I will first of all give the Floor to Honorable Daniel Koroma and then followed by the Deputy Leader of Government Business.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

For the purpose of clarity, that was the communication from my colleagues [Applause].

I apologize if I fail to adequately communicate to you as instructed or guided by my colleagues, but we wish to meet now [Applause].

HON.
HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, when we entered the Chambers earlier on, myself and the Leader of Government Business, intimated you of our intention of going to Committee Room One, and you said you have had consultations with Members of that Committee for the Welfare of Members of Parliament, but that was under normal temperature and pressure, now the dynamics have changed.

9 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I think I want to toe the line with my colleagues on the other side [Applause].
This is now an abnormal temperature and pressure, because we have waited for the alert and other issues; in any case Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, we join our colleagues that with your indulgence we go to Committee Room One for thirty minutes or forty-five minutes, and we will come back to the Chambers to discuss other business, but it is very important for us to go to Committee Room One, thank you.

THE SPEAKER: Order!

Order!


I thank the two Honourable Members who have taken the Floor, it is clear from what they have informed this House that the consensus is that we retire to Committee Room One now [Applause], and then come back to the Chambers to continue our deliberations.

The only question I have is whether my presence is required there or not.

HON.
HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, as I told you earlier, this is a separate Arm of Government headed by no less a person but your good self, so if we are to regulate ourselves based on the present circumstance, we need you as our Leader, we need you as the Head of this noble institution and noble organ of Government.
THE SPEAKER: I thank you very much for that acknowledgement, although there are times I get the impression that my position is occasionally threatened; I got the impression that there are Members who want to usurp the position of Mr Speaker.

Be that as it may, I will yield to your request; we shall all retire to Committee Room One, and resume afterwards.

[The House was stood down at 10:45 a.m. and resumed at 12:50 p.m.] HON.
MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, it is the same day we had quorum before we adjourned, so the last time I brought the argument, that why do we need to have another quorum after the adjournment?

So we need to clarify that I think we just need to continue, that is my submission Mr Speaker.
I have not seen it anywhere in the Standing Orders, quorum is for the commencement of the proceedings when you enter 10 the Chambers that is the first time you check for quorum and we had quorum, we adjourned to go to Committee Room One; it is a continuation of the sittings.

HON.

P. C. BAI KURR KANAGBARO SANKA III: Yes Mr Speaker, point of observation!
I think the practice in Parliament is that we have Chief Whips; it is the duty of the Chief Whips to call their Members of Parliament to the Well, and if they cannot, then they will tell us that their Members of Parliament are not coming.

That is my observation Sir, particularly on the Government side.

HON.
HON.

KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: Observation Honourable Speaker, the question he asked, just for the understanding of us all who are still freshmen, if indeed we had a quorum at the beginning, then you take a break does the Session continues?

We do not know it is a genuine issue that we need interpretation on, or is it a quorum for every Session?

HON.
HON.

SHIAKA M. SAMA: Mr Speaker, we met this morning, we had a quorum, we decided to have a break, for me, we are not having a new sitting, it is a continuation of what we started this morning, I think we should encourage the others to come in if not, we can go ahead with what we started this morning, thank you.

THE SPEAKER: Chief Whip, where are your Members?

For the edification of the Members who have raised the question about quorum, quorum in my opinion is a continuous requirement.
You could reduce the matter ad absurdum.

If you take a momentous decision without a quorum you could be challenged in terms of validity, that is why a quorum is required at all times.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker!

THE SPEAKER: I have ruled on this before.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Yes sir!

THE SPEAKER: Mr Acting Leader!

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Yes, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: I am not going to go over it the second time.

11 HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: I want to make my submission Mr Speaker.
THE SPEAKER: I have ruled on it before.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: I know, but I just want to make a submission.

I asked a simple question the other time when you were presiding, that if a debate is going on; and Members start to go out one by one which is their constitutional right via the Standing Orders, if we do not have quorum as the debate progresses, can you stop the that we cannot continue because we do not have a quorum?
sitting THE SPEAKER: That is why you have the Whips to ensure that there is always a quorum.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, you do not have to stop the debate because of that, which is always my argument.

You can tell the Whips tell Members to come in to sit, because it is their right to go out and come in as enshrined in the Standing Orders, which is the argument.

I have always put forward to this House that a quorum should be taken once, because it is not explicit in the Standing Orders.
THE SPEAKER: Thank you.

You have just answered your own question.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: I have not!

THE SPEAKER: It is not explicit and I am making it clear, that you need a quorum.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: But Mr Speaker, if that is the case, we will always have this problem, even in the mid of Debates you will call off the Debate, because we do not have a quorum and it is the right of Members to come in the Chamber and leave the Chamber in quietness, Mr Speaker.

HON.
HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: I just want to be educated whether the meeting in Committee Room One terminated the original quorum this morning?

THE SPEAKER: I beg your pardon?

Sorry.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: whether the quorum as it stood this morning, continues to be the quorum for today or whether our departure to Committee Room One actually terminated the original quorum this morning?

12 THE SPEAKER: As far as my understanding goes, a quorum for any meeting is a continuous requirement.
Just imagine if you were right to say that without a quorum you should proceed, what if you ended up having only five Members, and you took a momentous decision, what would you say about the validity of that decision?

Is it valid?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Mr Speaker, I am capitalizing on your use of the word “continuous”.

THE SPEAKER: Requirement!

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Requirement.

THE SPEAKER: That is correct.

HON.


IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Could the meeting this morning not be the beginning of requirement?

THE SPEAKER: We terminated the meeting and we are now recommencing.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Okay.

If that is your position then of course!

THE SPEAKER: We are reconvening now.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: We will look at it from that angle as well.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, I submit that there is an argument between termination and adjourn.
It was not terminated; we adjourned the Sitting to attend to some other issues.

THE SPEAKER: Well!

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Well, if terminated, it was a continuous process, and if you are saying it is a continuous process, it means we had quorum before we went.

THE SPEAKER: I did not.

I said requirement for a quorum is a continuous requirement, do not misquote me.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: I have submitted inter alia, that if a debate is in progress and people [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: So?

13 HON.


MATHEW S. NYUMA: Can I finish Sir, please?

This has not been cleared at all Mr Speaker.

Let say, if there is a Budget debate in progress, and Members start to go out one after the other which is our constitutional mandate, can you stop the debate not to proceed because there is no quorum?

You cannot, so Members asked to adjourn not to terminate the sitting.
If you adjourn for the other day, it is not a continuous day, the other day, it has been terminated; but you said let us go to Committee Room One and we said let us come back to the Chambers and we have not terminated the Sitting, and if the quorum is continuous, that means, when we started today and we had a quorum.

HON P.C BAI KURR KANAGBARO SANKA III: S.O.

7[2] Sir.

Mr Speaker, I stand on S. O.

7[2].

THE SPEAKER: Would you read it aloud please, for the benefit of all?
HON P.C BAI KURR KANAGBARO SANKA III: “If any Member, draws the attention of Mr Speaker to the fact that a quorum of the House is not present, or if from the number of Members taking part in a division including those Members who declined to Vote, it appears that a quorum is not present, Mr Speaker shall cause Members to be summoned as if for a division at the expiration of ten minutes thereafter.

Mr Speaker shall count the House and if a quorum is not present, shall adjourn Parliament forth with”.
THE SPEAKER: Thank you.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, we are not saying quorum for a division; it is quorum for a sitting.

THE SPEAKER: I have drawn the attention of the Chief Whip to ensure that the Honourable Members return to the Chambers.

Acting Leader of the Opposition, I noticed your own Chief Whip is not around.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: He will be here very soon.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you 14 HON.


IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Mr Speaker, on this matter my personal view is that when we all assembled here this morning, we actually constituted a quorum and that would have been the beginning, the commencement of the business of the day, but when on your own volition Mr Speaker [Interruption] THE SPEAKER: And with the concordance of the House.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: And when we listened to you as well.

THE SPEAKER: Not my own volition alone.

HON.


IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: We had to go and attend another meeting which is a continuation of parliamentary activities.

So therefore Mr Speaker, I thought by returning here, we are merely continuing the whole process, which explains why I did not think that we should terminate the activities of Parliament today, because since we came here this morning it has been Parliament.

Even the activities at Committee Room One, was a continuation of parliamentary procedure.
THE SPEAKER: It was not a continuation of the Plenary in Committee Room One, with greatest deference to you Sir.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Mr Speaker, even with your presence?

THE SPEAKER: Was that Plenary?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Well we did not really go to Committee Room One to get a Plenary.

THE SPEAKER: We went to Committee Room One, because we were meeting outside the Chambers.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: On Parliamentary matters, a continuation of what commence this morning Mr Speaker.
THE SPEAKER: Which was not on the Order Paper?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Mr Speaker, the Order Paper can always be amended.

15 THE SPEAKER: No Sir, look at the Order Paper, did you amend the Order Paper in Committee Room One?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Mr Speaker, I still stand by my words and I think that I can even ask for a division.

THE SPEAKER: Acting Leader of the Opposition, your best advice is to ensure that your Members come back to the Chambers and resume their seats.

HON.
HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: They are almost here.

THE SPEAKER: I understand that we now have a quorum we shall therefore proceed.

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

COMMUNICATION FROM THE CHAIR II.

CORRECTION OF VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS WEDNESDAY 18TH DECEMBER, 2019 FOR THE SPEAKER: Honourable Members, it will always interest you to have moot questions debated in the Chambers, very interesting indeed.
Maybe these are some of the gaps in our Standing Orders that we need to consider during the review of the Standing Orders.

Honourable Members, Votes and Proceedings of the Thirty third Sitting, Wednesday 18th December, 2019.

We shall skip Pages 1 through 4 and we shall start consideration of the Votes and Proceedings from Page 5.

Any corrections or comments on Page5?

Page6?

Page7?

Page8?

Page9?

Page10?

Page11?

Page12 and Page13?

Thank you, can somebody please move?

HON.


BRIMA MANSARAY: I so move Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: Any seconder?

HON.

HAFIJU M. KANJA: I so second Mr Speaker.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed to] [Record of Votes and Proceedings for the Parliamentary Sitting held on Wednesday 18th December, 2019 has been adopted as presented] 16 III.

LAYING OF PAPERS HON.


SIDIE M. TUNIS [Leader of Government Business]: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, in accordance with Section 118 Sub-Section 7 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone, Acts No.
6 of 1991, I beg to lay on the table, Gifts from the Chinese Embassy in Sierra Leone as a support for the capacity building of the Parliament of Sierra Leone as mentioned below: [1] One Canon Copy Machine and Three Printing Cartridges; [2] One Panasonic Video camera; [3] Two Lenovo Desktop Computers; [4] Two HP Printers and Two Print Cartridges; [5] Two Sharp Scanners and Two Print Cartridges; [6] Four Electric fans; and [7] One Dehumidifier.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I want to assure Honourable Members, that these items arrived in Sierra Leone before the Coronavirus, thank you [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I want to thank the Leader of Government Business for presenting to Parliament a document indicating the gifts that have been made to Parliament as an Arm of Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone.
I hope that you will continue to inform this House of all gifts and donations made to the state of Sierra Leone not just gifts made to the Parliament of Sierra Leone as required by the very provision of the Constitution that you have cited.

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Yes Mr Speaker?

THE SPEAKER: Yes!

HON.


DANIEL B. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, in line with this notification given by the Leader of Government Business, with your permission and for the edification of the public, I beg to read this relevant provision before I make my point.

Section 118 Sub- 17 Section 7 reads, “Parliament shall be notify by the appropriate Minister or Authority of all gifts, donations, grants and pledges made to the state of Sierra Leone”.

It is very authoritative, and on this note!


I want to use this opportunity to thank the Leader of Government Business for complying with this provision, but in addition to that, I have a concern and that concern is so genuine that it almost frustrates the Head of State in no less a person than His Excellency the President, Julius Maada Bio.

He was really frustrated for non-compliance of this provision on a specific issue.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, you can agree with me that sometimes in the recent past, gift was given by the People’s Republic of China to support the Flagship programme of His Excellency the President.

According to rumours, only 50,000 bags of rice were given through the appropriate Ministry to the people of this country.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, if this provision had been complied with, the frustration encountered by His Excellency the President, will never had happened and this is the rationale exactly, why this provision is necessary.

If Parliament had been informed about the 50,000 bags of rice, we will have locus standi.
You know what we called in law locus, we would have the authority to monitor those gifts or donations given by the People’s Republic of China, but because Parliament was not privy, and was not informed, that caused all the reasons for the frustration of His Excellency the President.

As an Opposition, we do not want that to repeat, because it is our President and indeed that is the Free Quality Education Programme, his Flagship Programme, for the success of this country.
If there is anything that would frustrate our President, in getting or achieving his desired objectives, I do not think this Parliament can tolerate that any more.

So, on that note Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I move that Parliament be adequately informed in writing of those gifts given by the People’s Republic of China to the Flagship Programme of this country.

At that stage, Parliament will now have the locus through the relevant Committee or Committees to look into the affairs relating to that rice.
As it is, it has led to the sackings of a Minister; Deputy Minister; Permanent 18 Secretary; and Directors by His Excellency the President.

He made no mistake, it is a clear manifestation that he has been frustrated, but it was because this provision was not followed, if this provision was followed we would have made the President happy through our monitoring and oversight.
So, in that regard Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I move that Parliament be officially informed of the rice given to the People of this country to support His Excellency the President [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Members, the point made by the Honourable Daniel B. Koroma is a very good point.

The only thing I would want him to draw attention to is, that he could have made his point without bringing the name of the President.

In accordance with the provisions of S.O.


32 [10], “the President’s name shall not be used to influence the House” that does not detract from the substance however, of the point that he has made in reference to the constitutional provision contained in Sub-Section 7 of Section 118.

A Motion is on the Floor, is there any seconder to that?

HON.

DR KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: I so second, Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: Were you standing to second?

HON.


DR KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: Yes, to buttress, since I have seconded; Honourable Speaker, l seconded Honourable Daniel Koroma’s Motion, because Section 118 is very clear and some of us had stated over and over that part of our role is to help governance, part of our role is to help the Executive Arm with oversight, and appropriate laws also in executing the provisions in the Constitution.
So in seconding that Motion, we want to be informed, we see a lot in social media, we have heard that in fact, this is the second consignment.

Yesterday Honourable Speaker, you chaired a very important meeting with visitors from the United Nations [UN] and Office of the Vice President on nutrition.

We had a very wonderful discussion part of it included, the rice that is being now distributed by World Food Programme [WFP].
Since it would be eventually in the Medium and Long Term, every Constituency and the schools in our Constituencies, we do believe we have the authority as Parliament to be informed on what has been given, what was the distribution plan and how it is going, so that we can help the Executive Arm.

This Parliament has approved a lot of funding for the Free 19 Quality Education and also the School Feeding, so we want to help to ensure that the quality of the implementation is assured.
On that note, I second the Motion proposed by Honourable Daniel B. Koroma.

THE SPEAKER: Acting Leader, do you still want the Floor?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: I simply want to explain when and why mentioning the name of the President in quite a number of cases could not be frowned at.
Mr Speaker, when we compiled, when we drafted the Constitution here, you and I were part of it, the whole idea was not only to Mr President, but also, we should not make any negative comments against a citizen who is not present in the Well who cannot defend himself.
But in this case, Mr President has been mentioned in good faith and Mr President’s role has been made very, very clear by Honourable Daniel B. Koroma and we want it to be understood, that when the name of the President is mentioned especially, as it relates to his functions as the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, of course we see nothing wrong in that with the provision which you had already mentioned.
Mr Speaker, one thing that is also very clear, is that a good number of Ministries Departments and Agencies [MDAs] received gifts and donations from quite a number of organisations and it is their responsibilities especially, the Administrative head, to proceed by the provisions of this Constitution, by informing this Parliament about the presence of that donation or gift.
But like I said, a good number of people have received gifts on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone; on behalf of the People of Sierra Leone, they have never come to this House to make sure that they inform the Speaker and this House.

May I state that as I support Honourable Daniel B. Koroma, I also want to note the point, that when he said that the President’s efforts have been frustrated by the non-compliance by some people in governance, he meant well.

Thank you Mr Speaker.


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Acting Leader of the Opposition for his observation.

I have a Motion on the Floor that has been seconded.

Yes!

20 HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Honourable Daniel B. Koroma cited Section 118 Sub- Section 7 specifically.

I do not know if it has to do with the laying of gifts, loans, etc.

I think that particular provision is for that, but did not hear you citing provision in moving the Motion for what we have on the Floor.
But what I will tell you Mr Speaker, on our side we want in consultation with the Leader of Government Business to send a memorandum to MDAs informing them on Section 118 Sub-Section 7.

I have no problem with the Motion, we do not believe in rhetoric but action.
The matter is with the Anti-Corruption Commission, I do not also know what our investigation as a House will lead to, but we on this side will assure you that we will send out memoranda to remind MDAs, that if you have gifts, you have to present it to Parliament.

Thank you Mr Speaker for given me the Floor.


THE SPEAKER: Thank you very much, and with that, the House will no doubt applaud you for that action, but my understanding of that Motion, that is before the House, is to reinforce the very action that you have taken, to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Constitution, so you are not at purposes here.

So I have a Motion in front of all of you here.

Are you speaking for or against?

HON.

BASIRU SILIKIE: Thank you Mr Speaker.


Honourable Members, the Constitution is supreme.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you very much.

HON.

BASIRU SILIKIE: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Constitution in Section 118, Sub-Section 7 is very clear.

There is no need to move a Motion when it is a statutory law, the Constitution is supreme and it says, whatever Government receives, or anybody receives on behalf of Sierra Leone should be brought to this Parliament.
So there is no need when the Constitution speaks, we just have to remind the authorities, there is no need to move a Motion when we have a law that is clear.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I will ask that you tell the Leaders to inform the Executive Arm quoting the Constitution and informing them, that they should adhere to that provision in the Constitution.
There is no need for a Motion when there is a law, 21 there is already an established law, why do we need to move a Motion, when there is law, we can move a Motion, but there is a law which says, if Executive, anybody or the Government receives gift for and on behalf of the people of the Republic of Sierra Leone Parliament must be informed.

So Mr Speaker and Honourable Members, we should just remind the Executive, but there is no need for a Motion.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, when we were here, the Ministry of Transport procured 100 Busses, we did not move a Motion, but we reminded the Ministry that they should respect the provision in the Constitution and the transport Committee invited the Minister and he made his presentation in this Well.

Thank you very much [Undertone].
THE SPEAKER: Honourable Members, I clearly do not understand what we are debating about, let me remind you, what the Acting Leader of Government Business did a short while ago, was to lay a document on the Table of this House by way of giving us information of a gift that has been made to Parliament by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and I reminded the Leader of Government Business in applauding his action that he should ensure that it is not just gifts to Parliament, that should be brought to Parliament, but gifts to the State of Sierra Leone; and he agreed with me.
My understanding of Daniel Koroma’s Motion, is merely to reinforce the point that, this Parliament is drawing the attention of all MDAs that there is this provision contained in Section 118, Sub-Section 7 mandatory, that gifts to the state of Sierra Leone ought to be brought by way of notification to this Parliament, I see nothing wrong with that, so I do not know what really we are splitting air about.

And I see the Acting Leader of the Opposition; I take note of his agreement with that approach.

HON.
MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, thank you very much for elucidating on this point, but may I remind you Mr Speaker, that even the clause is a mandatory clause, it says shall, it is very clear as the Honourable Basiru Silikie was trying to point out, for us to look at the law again instead of having a Motion, so we are on the same page, if we still need the Motion, we do not have problem with that, but there is a mandatory clause Mr Speaker, so if there is a Motion, it is left with you Mr Speaker, to go with the 22 Motion, but if we want to leave it as it is in the Constitution, it also left with you.
I am just saying, that you use your good office for the purpose of progress, are we going with the Motion, or we can go ahead.

THE SPEAKER: I think we are going with the Motion.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you Mr Speaker.

[Question Proposed, Put and Agreed to] [The Motion moved by Honourable Daniel Koroma has been carried] HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, I just want some clarification now.
There is provision in the Constitution; we will like to know which one takes precedence, because we are sending Memoranda, so which one will take precedence after the other?

I want you to clarify for us.

We have the constitutional mandate and then we have the Motion, how do we do it?
THE SPEAKER: It is very clear that it draws the attention of the MDAs, you made reference to the provision in the Constitution, and also draw attention to the fact that it has come to the attention of Parliament, that gifts have been made to the state of Sierra Leone of which had not been brought to this Parliament, and to ensure that, that practice no longer holds.

A Motion has been past drawing the attention of MDAs to that essential provision of the Constitution, as simple as that.
It is not anything controversial.

IV.

MOTION OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPOINTMENTS AND PUBLIC SERVICES.

PROPOSER: HONOURABLE MATHEW S. NYUMA SECONDED: HONOURABLE AMADU KANU HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Mr Speaker, before I proceed to read the Report, the Chairman of Information and Communications Committee, Members of the Fourth Estate are our friends, we invite them when we have Committee proceedings, but there are rules.
Mr Speaker with your leave, I want to remind members of the Fourth Estate 23 of the provision in S.O.75, and I want to read that provision Mr Speaker, can I read this provision sir?

THE SPEAKER: Go ahead!

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you sir.


“Premature presentation of pre-select Committee Report.’’ S.O 75 [1], ‘‘evidence given before or any paper forming part of the records of a Select Committee may be printed for the exclusive information of the Members of the Committee, but shall not be published before the Proceedings of the Committee and reported to Parliament”.
75[2], “The evidence taken for any Select Committee and any document shall not be published by any Member of just Committee or by any other person, before the Committee had presented their Report to the House”.

75[3], “The contravention of this Order constitute contempt of Parliament”.

Mr Speaker, I do not want to invoke contempt of Parliament at this point, I want to talk to my colleagues, if you want any information, follow procedures.
And if you think you want to be on the same page with us, come to the Committee, we will discuss together, but when you go ahead making publications, that we have rejected Presidential Nominees, is uncalled for; so I am talking to them through your good office Sir, let them be careful and properly do and take into consideration Section 75, Sub-Section 1, 2 and 3.
THE SPEAKER: Before you proceed, in line with the advice that you have just given, I would like the Clerk of Parliament to inform this House as to the media houses that are duly accredited to the Gallery of Parliament.

It has come to my attention, that quite a number of journalists have been writing about the Proceedings of this Parliament.

I am not quite sure, whether all of them are duly accredited to the Press Gallery of this House.
So please, by the time of our next sitting, I will like the Clerk to inform the House about the media houses that are accredited, so that when we read what they write or published, we will bear that in mind, that there are people who enjoy the privilege of our accreditation.

Thank you.

24 HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: In addendum, we are working closely to repeal the Public Order Act, we are in consultation with the SLAJ Executive, and so I do not want your publications to hinder that process so far.
That is why we have not reprimanded any Newspaper; I have just read the provision so that you can take note of that.

I like working with journalists, but let us do it within the law.

Thank you Mr Speaker, for giving me this platform!

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, be it resolved that the Eleventh Report of the Second Session of the Committee on Appointments and Public Service be adopted by the House and that the recommendations contained therein be approved.

1.
Introduction Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service that is responsible to vet Presidential Nominees and select the most fitted and qualified persons to serve in public offices, met on Tuesday 28th January, 2020, and interviewed thirteen Presidential Nominees for appointments to the following positions: [i] Chairman, National Seeds Board; [ii] Chairman, National Fertilizer Regulatory Board; [iii] Chairman, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone; [iv] Seven Members, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited; [v] Two Members, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone; and [vi] Member, Road Maintenance Fund Administration.
2.

Procedure The Committee conducted the hearing within the ambit of its established criteria.

The Committee: i.

Requested for public input into the vetting process to ascertain the suitability of the nominees for their proposed appointments; 25 ii.

Requested for and relied on specified documents pertaining to their backgrounds and other related matters; iii.

Ensured that the nominees were cleared of any criminal records by the Criminal Investigation Department of the Sierra Leone Police; and iv.
Ensured that each nominee had the relevant qualification and necessary backup experience to hold his/her proposed appointment.

Probing questions put to the nominees covered wide ranging issues pertaining to their track records in other pertinent work situations, their declared assets and liabilities, fulfilment of their tax obligations and their visions for a successful and nationally productive tenure, issues of unsuitability were closely looked into by the Committee.

3.
3.

Twelfth Sitting of the Committee on Tuesday, 28th January, 2020 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the following nominees were interviewed on oath: [i] Professor Abu Sesay, Proposed Chairman, National Seeds Board [NSB] Professor Abu Sesay is a renowned educationist who has served as the Chancellor and Principal of Njala University College.
He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer [CEO] of the Social Policy Analyst and Accuracy Consultancy Group, Sierra Leone [SOPPAA] Answering to the Committee’s questions, Professor Abu Sesay bragged that he was well known as an academia and a man of excellence, both at home and abroad.

“I am the type of man people would seek to have, because of my level of academic qualifications and experiences.
If I obtain the approval of Honourable Members, I will be going to the National Seeds Board with great innovative ideas that will help in the monitoring process.

As a Board, we will set high standards to ensure that only quality seeds are imported into the country for distribution to farmers.

We will also ensure that only registered suppliers, approved by the Ministry, would be allowed to import seeds into the country,” he said.
26 [ii] Dr Augustine Thomas Roberts, Proposed Chairman, National Fertilizer Regulatory Board Dr Augustine Thomas Robert is a Programme Management expert with proven knowledge and experience in organising, staffing, leading and controlling various programmes and complex projects.

From August 2016, to February 2019, he served as Chief of Party, Women’s Empowerment and Leadership Development [WELD], World Vision Sierra Leone led consortium programme.
Responding to the Committee’s inquiries, Dr Roberts said, “The National Fertilizer Regulatory Board is meant to play a key role in terms of fertilizer control, the quality of the fertilizer, who imports the fertilizer and who sells it and how it is distributed.

It is all about control, management and the provision of guidance to the suppliers of the market to ensure that farmers are provided with the right fertilizer.
The National Fertilizer Regulatory Board is responsible for regulating the importation of fertilizers in the country.

The Act requires that all importers are required to be approved and registered with the Ministry.” Dr Robert assured the Committee that together with his team, he will ensure that they make a difference.
“So if I obtain your blessing of approval, Honourable Members, I will bring in strategies that will ensure that only quality fertilizers will be imported in the country.’’ [iii] Mr David Sengo Woobay, Proposed Chairman, National Sport Authority Mr David Sengo Woobay is an acclaimed sport administrator with local and international accreditation.

He was the Director of Sports, 1992 to 2001, and from 2004-2012.

Mr David Sengo Woobay served as the Chairman, Moyamba District Council.
Mr David Sengo Woobay started his interview by thanking His Excellency, the President, for graciously nominating him.

If approved by this Honourable House, Mr Woobay assured the Committee with the following statement “I will be going to that office with a lot of experience.

I will ensure that I contribute in no small measure to make a real difference.

With the support of the other members of the Board, we will make this nation proud.

Failure will not be an option as I have always done.
I have served and 27 surmounted many obstacles and this appointment is going to be an addendum to my resume.” [iv] Mr Mohamed Rex Benya, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Mr Mohamed Rex Benya is a Human Resources Management expert and a teacher.

From 1985 to 1987, he served as Sales Agent of the Job Security Insurance Company Limited, Liberia.
Responding to probing questions, Mr Mohamed Rex Benya said, he views his nomination as a call to national duty and he promised to work hard to revive and strengthen the marketing wing of the Lottery Company, “There are seven districts in this country where Lottery does not have a visible presence.

So we will work to have a branch of the Company in every district Headquarter town in this country.

A vibrant marketing strategy is what we need to speedily revive the company,” he said.
[v] Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara is a trained and qualified teacher with proficiency in management skills with over twenty years of hands-on teaching and coaching experience.

She is currently serving as the Head Teacher, Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood Primary School, [SLMB], Naimbana Street, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Answering to the Committee’s enquiries, Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara said, she accepted the nomination of His Excellency, the President, because she wanted to be part of the team to revive and resuscitate the State Lottery Company to its former greatness.

“I promise to work to the best of my ability to ensure that the Sierra Leone State Lottery become a very enviable betting company to compete with any in the lottery market.
I am a woman with great marketing and business ideas that I will draw on to help promote the company,” she said.

She called on colleague Board Members to be patriotic and to work together for the success of the company.

28 [vi] Mr John Abdul Kargbo, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Mr John Abdul Kargbo is an educational administrator with several years of experience in Information Management System.
He is currently a lecturer at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.

Responding to probing inquiries, Mr John Abdul Kargbo said, State Lottery has depreciated to a shadow of its former self.

He informed the Committee that when he collected his nomination letter, he visited some areas where State Lottery had once boomed and flourished.

“I visited my home town, Mile 91, Lunsar, Port Loko, and Kambia.

I realised that years back, lottery was at its best in all these areas.
Today there is no sign of lottery.

So coming to the Board, one thing I will do is to convince my colleague Board Members, for us to work as a team in rigorous marketing drive to revive the company,” he said.

[vii] Mr Saidu Mohamed Conteh, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Mr Saidu Mohamed Conteh is a teacher of high standing with a proven knowledge in administrative management.

He is currently a private business man.


Responding to Committee Members’ inquiries, Mr Saidu Mohamed Conteh said, “the Sierra Leone State Lottery was established by an Act of Parliament in 1960, and it started operations in 1962.

The Company started off well and continued to flourish in the years thereafter.

But, because of policies and management lapses, lottery is down today to a shadow of its former self.

There is however hope in the enthusiasm of the new Board to revive the institution.
I am encouraged by the determination of the new Board Members that I have met, to revive the Sierra Leone State Lottery.” [viii] Rev.

Joe Bob Amara, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited 29 Rev.

Joe Bob Amara is a Minister of the Gospel with extensive knowledge in leadership and Conflict Resolution.

From 1998-2000, he served as Board Chairman of the Evangelical College of Theology.
In 2008, he served as the District Training Officer for the National Electoral Commission [NEC].

Rev.

Joe Bob Amara was most thankful to His Excellency, for his nomination.

He assured the Committee that he would be drawing on all his life experiences for the success of the Board.

“I will instill financial discipline and cooperate with my colleague Board Members to ensure that all financial matters are handled correctly and according to the laid down financial regulations,” he said.
[ix] Rev Dixon Siadu, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Rev.

Dixon Saidu is a Minister of the Gospel and a School Teacher and a member of the noble profession of Classroom Teachers.

Reacting to the Committee’s prompts, Rev.

Dixon Saidu said that his vision for the Sierra Leone State Lottery is to revive and rebrand the State Lottery Company.

Lottery, he said, “has lost its customer base”.


[x] Alhaji Alusine Funkuba Fofanah, Proposed Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Alhaji Alusine Funkuba Fofanah is a Financial Management expert with extensive working experience in Accounting, Management and Business Development.

He is currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer, Design, Construction and Commercial Services.
In his interview, Alhaji Alusine Funkuba Fofanah assured Members that “The Sierra Leone State Lottery is a Company that needs marketing strategies to revive and resuscitate it.

We have fourteen districts in the country, but lottery has a visible presence in only seven districts.

If I obtain your blessing by way of approval, I will endeavour, with the cooperation of my colleague Board Members, to extend the company to all fourteen districts of the country.
We will also ensure that proper marketing strategies are put in place to broaden the company market base and to make the company attractive again”, he said.

30 [xi] Mr Francis Tucker, Proposed Member, Board of Directors Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited Mr Francis Tucker is a development specialist with several years of work experience in international and Non-Governmental Organizations.

From 2009-2010, he served as procurement assistant, German Technical Cooperation [GTZ-EPP].
In his interview, Mr Francis Tucker assured the Committee that his input as a Board Member of the Sierra Leone State Lottery is going to be purely on marketing, because the Company has gone down for many years now.

“Being a Government owned Company, we need to bring in new marketing strategies to revive the institution to make it viable again,” he said.
[xii] Mrs Zainab Augusta Baby Milton, Proposed Member, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone Mrs Zainab Augusta Baby Milton is a Lecturer at Njala University College with proficiency in Sport Administration and Management.

Reacting to the Committee’s enquiries, Mrs Zainab A.

B. Milton started by thanking His Excellency, the President, for nominating her and for the recognition given to women to be part of his Government.

Mrs Zainab A.B.
Mrs Zainab A.B.

Milton opined that “Sport is very important in the journey towards sustainable development.

Many countries like Brazil have developed through their sporting activities.

I believe if we put the right modalities in place, set the right standards, and make sport very attractive for the youths of this nation, sport will yield the social and economic dividends due to this country.
So as a Board Member,” she went on, “I will be working with other members in ensuring that sports become very attractive for people to see it as an employment base.

We have talented sport men and women, but as a nation, we have not yet tapped into their huge potentials for several reasons.

Whatever the reasons, we need to change the narratives for the good of the country”, she said.
[xiii] Mr Francis Sahr Alpha, Proposed Member, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone 31 Mr Francis Sahr Alpha is a sport administrator and management specialist.

He is currently the supervisor, Department of Games and Sport, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.

Reacting to the Committee’s prompts, Mr Francis Sahr Alpha disclosed that he was a sportsman and hence, was very passionate about sport.
“So I see my appointment as a dream come true and an opportunity for me to positively contribute towards the growth of sports in the country.

If I obtain the blessings of approval from this Honourable House, I will work to the best of my ability to awaken and make sporting activities very attractive to our youths.

As a Board, we will also be looking at the challenges we are facing as a nation in the sport sector and endeavour to find solutions,” he said.

4.
4.

Recommendation[s] Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Committee adjudged the following Presidential Nominees to be fit and qualified for their proposed appointments and are recommended to the House for approval.
[i] Professor Abu Sesay, proposed Chairman, National Seeds Board; [ii] Dr Augustine Thomas Roberts, proposed Chairman, National Fertilizer Regulatory Board; [iii] Mr David Sengo Woobay, Chairman, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone; [iv] Rev Dixon Saidu, Member, Board of Directors Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited; [v] Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara, Member Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery; [vi] Mr Mohamed Rex Benya, Member Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery; [vii] Mr John Abdul Kargbo, Member Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery; [viii] Mr Saidu M. Conteh, Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery; [ix] Mr Francis Tucker, Member, Board of Directors Sierra Leone State Lottery; 32 [x] Alhaji Alusine Funkuba Fofanah, Member, Board of Directors, Sierra Leone State Lottery; [xi] Mr Francis Sahr Alpha, Member, National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone; [xii] Mrs Zainab Augusta Baby Milton, Member National Sport Authority of Sierra Leone; and [xiii] Rev.
Joe Bob Amara, Member, Road Maintenance Fund Administration.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the Eleventh Report is the unanimous view of the Committee.

I therefore move that the Eleventh Report of the Second Session of the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service be adopted by the House and that the recommendations contained therein be approved.

The Report is Signed, Submitted and read by Hon.

Mathew S. Nyuma, Chairman.

THE SPEAKER: Any seconder?

HON.


AMADU KANU: Mr Speaker, I second that Motion.

[Question Proposed] THE SPEAKER: The debate now commences, I will start with the seconder.

HON.

AMADU KANU: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me again in my contribution to the Motion before us this afternoon start by thanking His Excellency the President, Dr Julius Maada Bio for the Appointment of these nominees.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, again this afternoon, we have another batch of very distinguished Sierra Leoneans as our nominees seated before us awaiting our approval in consistent with our Constitution.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, my colleague at the other end of the Well, the Honourable Deputy Leader of the House and Acting Chairman of this Committee in his submission, Mr Speaker, I mean the submission on the Eleventh Report of the Committee on Appointments, was very eloquently alluded to our findings and recommendations that, the nominees are qualified.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, to add value to that, as a Member of the Committee, let me 33 inform this House and the listening public that all of the nominees seated before us here, were all properly and thoroughly screened, putting the interest of this country above all other things.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I must therefore, attest to the undeniable fact that the nominees were all very qualified and suitable for the positions for which they were all nominated to serve.
But Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I always have my take when it comes to issues relating to qualifications or suitability of nominees, because I always hold the view Mr Speaker, that we are not in short supply of man power; we have a reservoir of qualified and suitable Sierra Leoneans to serve us.

When it comes to service delivery Mr Speaker, most of the challenges we have hinges on attitude, ego and in most cases, has to do with bad politics.
Mr Speaker, for the purpose of my contribution to the Motion before us, I will not elaborate on that.

My take at this juncture is to once more thank His Excellency the President, Dr Julius Maada Bio.
I have been following Mr Speaker, mark you, this is my second time of saying thank you to President Bio, the last time I had cause to do that was at Moyamba Junction and I will continue to do that as and when situation deems it fit, because I am not only representing him as a Member of Parliament from the South, but implicitly also, I am representing him in Moyamba given the proximity between Moyamba and Bonthe.
I have been following Mr Speaker, that His Excellency President Maada Bio has done a lot of good things in the name of appointments in Moyamba District.
I am pleased to inform this House that we have batteries of ambassadors including the Ambassador to China, he is coming from Moyamba, we have the Director General of National Minerals Agency [NMA], he is coming from Moyamba, The Director of Public Prosecution [DPP], he is coming from Moyamba, we have the Internal Affairs Minister coming from Moyamba and Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the list goes on and on.
Today, we also have in our midst a nominee coming from Moyamba District, it is a plus to say thank you to President Bio.

Because for us in Moyamba, this will give us hope in exchange for hopelessness, to be buried and put behind us against those who wanted to kill our hope.

Kudos to you President Maada Bio, I know you inherited a lot 34 of good things in Moyamba District, we have tarmac roads, street lights to name but just a few, you will continue from that point.
You have given us the cause not to bother you with the appointments you have given us.

If want to recruit one of my boys as a Police Officer, instead of going to you, I will simply approach one of my brothers in the person of Honourable Soluku.

Mr Speaker, let me use this platform to inform President Bio, I am just thinking loudly that I am yet to receive a single recruit from my brother, I am not complaining do not worry [undertone].
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, it was my intention to singled out Mr David Sengo Woobay, but to give preference to other speakers, I will only once more say thank you to President Bio and to inform him also that for us in Moyamba, “you touch one, you touch all”, so the appointment of Mr David Sengo Woobay is an appointment for the people of Moyamba District.

Mr Speaker, I know this is a blessing to this administration; Mr David Sengo Woobay is a very fine character.
He falls under the category of people I normally refer to as the go-getters.

When you delegate responsibility to Mr David Sengo Woobay, he will go and perform.
I want to assure his Excellency the President, that definitely, Mr David Sengo Woobay is going to be a man with a difference because Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Mr David Sengo Woobay will not only stop at the specific functions that he is going to perform if approved at the Ministry of Sports, but he will proffer advice as and when necessary in other areas.
Against that backdrop Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me once more on my personal behalf and on behalf of the people of the Southern Region of this country, especially the people of Moyamba District, but more specifically the people of Constituency 93, say thank you to President, Bio for this appointments [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member, for his very erudite contribution to the debate.

I know there are many of you who want to pay obeisance to your former teacher.
I can see a good number to my left as well as my right, but it is still early in the afternoon, so we can accommodate as many as possible.

Alright!

After Honourable Kandeh K. Yumkella, it will be Honourable Veronica Sesay, followed by Honourable Jorkie, followed by Madam in that order.

I will take another set.

35 HON.

KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: Mr Speaker, I will make this very quick.
Honourable Speaker, distinguished Members of Parliament, I feel honoured to stand to give tribute to three teachers that are sitting here in this noble House.

Where we are today, people mentored us.

I start with Mr David Sengo Woobay.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Mr David S. Woobay, when I was a little kid in Christ the King College [CKC] as a sports man, for 400 meters, 800 meters, they were our coaches but very disciplined.

Himself and Mr Berewa, discipline was their mantra.
So we thank you very much for making us competitive and enforcing discipline that “no pain no gain.” That was secondary school, and then I had the honour as a young radical student, fresh man to final year at Njala University College by then to be taught by two great men sitting here, Dr Augustine Thomas Roberts and Professor Abu Sesay taught me Biological Sciences and Agricultural Economics.
In fact, thanks to Dr Augustine T. Roberts and others, it was because of them, that I chose to go into Masters and PhD in Agricultural Economics.

But I have had the privilege of also meeting Professor Abu Sesay out of this country, very serious academics; both him and Dr Roberts, they have excelled internationally and have come home to serve.

It is an honour to see you still wanting to serve this nation; I hope all of us will.
You are well placed where you are, I know of your reputation; you groomed me and several others.

Let me give you a joke.

Professor Abu Sesay came to class and he said, quiz true or false, he had come from America and that is the American way of teaching.
They will come and give you three questions and its true or false and we were used to writing long essays from CKC and we said ah S.O[2] “dis paa wan mek wi lek pikin dem” most of us failed the quiz, because this was not time to regurgitate what you had memorised.

This was the time to look at the fact and tell us if it is true or false and we could not, but after a while we got used to Professor Abu Sesay and others, and so thank God we excelled.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, my final comment is, we stand at 394 appointees by His Excellency the President, Maada Bio, yes, I checked two weeks ago, we were 382 so now we have added another 13, so it is 395.

I say this for a good reason, His Excellency the President, says 2020, is a year of delivery; this country will succeed or 36 fail because of those 400 people we have approved in this Parliament.
The President does not go down to execute, it is these people we screen here; they are the executives of the Agencies, and they are the Ministers, Deputy Ministers and Ambassadors.

They will make or break this country and when he says delivery I would like him to add, 2020, is not just the year of delivery; but the year of Delivery, Compliance and Enforcement.

Why enforcement?

We found out from the Auditor General’s Report that we lost Le141bln in 2018 that was down in the trenches and in the Agencies.
It is the responsibility of the heads of those Agencies to close the leakages.

We are changing people, but the habits further down still stay the same that is why this nation is being wrecked.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, secondly, that is why I say compliance.

The Auditor General’s Report from 2015 to now, all we need to do is implement our recommendations, we will close the leakages, we will have delivery, we will have good performance; but people are deliberately ignoring them.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, my third point is enforcement.

The Government set some targets in their manifesto, they have translated that also into instruments we have passed in Parliament; they need to be enforced otherwise, there will be no delivery.

So what I would admonish these new nominees to positions of trust is, we have spent a lot of money on subvented Agencies, some of which is being wasted.

In my view, some should be merged and some eliminated.
Those monies can go into jobs; they can go into more Agricultural Extension Services, they can go to forest protection officers, not bureaucrats sitting in Freetown “fat-cats” with all privileges doing nothing.

Mr President, if 2020 is going to be delivery, make sure they comply with the Auditor- General’s recommendations, and make sure you enforce the instruments that Parliament passed for you.

I wish you well, but for my teachers, it is an honour to see you here, we will try not to let you down still.
Thank you very much.

HON.

VERONICA K. SESAY: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I just want to join my colleagues in thanking our President, your President and my President, for giving us these fine nominees.

I want us to underline or 37 I have already underlined these words on the third line of the first paragraph which says, with your permission Mr Speaker, “Selecting the most fitted and qualified persons”.
And I want to attest here today that these people are indeed the most fitted and qualified people.

And I want to say with no hesitation, that this particular group are blessed, because we have God-fearing people, we have Reverends, we have Alhajis, we have experts, we have mothers, we have fathers, we have teachers, you name them.

So all spheres of life that is why you are blessed.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I am very, very much happy for Sierra Leone State Lottery, and having the Board formed at this same time unlike the other Boards; you will have one Board today, after three days or one month, they nominate again another Board so you will find out that some of these Boards are handicapped.

But this time, the State Lottery has been given the right number of Board Members and I know now you are ready to work.
Lottery falls under my Committee, I have been having complaints about the deplorable condition of lottery, and I want to say here, that lottery is the baby of this country.

Like others, we have lottery, we have Sierratel, Postal Services, you name them; they are our babies, we should capacitate them.
There were some other games, but in those days if you hear lottery, everybody would be focusing, casting I do not know how to call it; they will be checking their lottery numbers, gain monies and monies would be paid to the Government.

But this time, it has been engulfed by other Agencies or other institutions, so I am very much happy because lottery has been revived; and I know you are going there with zeal; you should go there to rejuvenate lottery.
Lottery also known as lotto is the bread basket of this country and anything that has to do with the country, you have to pay more premium to and I hope you are going there, not with SLPP flag, not with APC flag, you are not going there with any other flag, but “The Green, White and Blue”.

Make sure you revive that institution, I would follow up and I will make sure you comply.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I always say this, “those who have suffered much have the right to be happy”.
Mr Mohamed Rex Benya, congratulations in advance [Applause].

This is why we always tell people S.O.

[2] “Patient dog dae eat fat bones”.

38 People were saying no job, no job!

But I believe he has appreciated the one, because you have to hold one and ask for the other.
Mr Mohamed Rex Benya, you have been the chairperson for the grassroots and Lotto is a grass root game, you make sure you carry your expertise in that particular institution; take it like that, small, small, the line is long, you will get it one day.

I hope you appreciate His Excellency’s view.

And also I just want to zoom in an encyclopaedia I always say, and it is nice to give the right position to the right person; and there is a man that I just want to zoom on.
Some people were saying old major yes; we have to be taken this expertise, the whole idea is rejuvenate our institution.

Mr Speaker, Mr David Sengo Woobay is a household name in Moyamba; that man has done it and he has been doing it and I have no hesitation, you are going to do more like Oliver Twist.
You are going to do more, because talking about sport in those days, we use to have inter-secondary schools sport, if you go to Bo, they invite you to UCC, it was the most predominant sports meet that will ever happen in Bo, they invite people internationally, but with your expertise, I know if you go there, you are going to give life and premium to sport; we want to be sitting there watching our grandchildren and our children.
Mr David Sengo Woobay, have been doing that, you have done that for Moyamba District as you heard from my brother, he has manned two [2] terms in the Moyamba District Council, so going there as Sport Chairperson, I know, and I have no doubt that you can do it.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now to the ladies.

We are asking for 30%, but it is coming gradually.

But I have no doubt, instead of having women of circumstance, let us have women with substance.
Sisters, go and prove to His Excellency, that you are women of substance, we will be behind you.

We have the Caucus here, if there is any problem, just channel it, come to us, but you have to be lukewarm; listen to your bosses, listen to the other Board Members, have team-work, work as mothers, you have our blessings.

With these few words, you are all over-qualified and especially those people who were in the Party office; Alhaji and the likes.
You are all over qualified, that is why I said [undertone], listen please, your mummy is talking.

So with 39 that, I just want to urge you because time is far spent.

Congratulates to you in advance when approved, go there and prove it.

Thank you very much.

HON.

MOSES B. JORKIE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Let me start by thanking His Excellency the President, Dr Rtd.

Julius Maada Bio for giving us these fine nominees this afternoon.
It is just the same anyway, we are just going to offer some advice to you people, already they have said a lot, but if I can go along by our Leader over there, Honourable Kandeh K. Yumkella; you people need to improve this country, President Maada Bio is not going to do much, that is the work he has done by appointing you to offices so that when you go there, you have to work for the Government.
Please, please, do not forget that if you fail to work in your offices, you are planning to fail this country; that is the advice I am going to give you.

I am really pleased and overwhelmed when I saw the appointment of Mr Mohamed Rex Benya.

I want to believe that not only me, but majority of SLPP Supporters are really happy to see you here today for approval [Applause].

Because when actually you work for something, you need to benefit from it.
I know like my brother was trying to give an undertone, that the job is not fat and the rest, but I know it is a fat Job, because you were seated without nothing but today you are going somewhere by God’s grace when you are approved by this House, so that at the end of the month you must have something to take Home.
For all those of you who are nominated to go to the State Lottery, please you know the time that Company started operations in 1962 and up to now, look at what Mercury is doing which has just emerged not far too long, so please when you go, as a good number of you have been appointed to that office, please put your expertise together to make sure that you revive that particular Company.
Because as you know, Lotto is a very good and nice game, it is a Betting Company, that is just an advice I am going to give you, when you go, please make sure that you revive that Company.

And for the districts which are without Lotto as you said, you please make sure that the presence of Lotto is felt there.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, for Rev.


Joe Bob Amara, in fact I am made to understand that two of the nominees are Godly people, I know we are all Godly people; 40 Please make sure that when you go to those offices, fear God, when you go to your pulpits to preach, so that at least, we will lead this country to where we want to.

Please Rev.

Joe Bob Amara, I know you very well, you are an honest man, perform to the best of your ability.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, for the Sports Ministry, for those of you who are going there, when it is weekends on Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays, you see a good number of youths rushing to go and watch football games.

This tells you that this country really have football loving fans, so please, make sure that you revive sports; we love it even when standing here, I was once a footballer but now, I cannot play the game.
So please, we really want you to put heads together, put hands together, to make sure that sports be at the top, because we are lagging behind.

Without wasting time, I am going to stop here and give chance to others; please make sure that when you go to your offices work assiduously on that.

I am asking all colleagues to speedily approve these fine nominees before us this afternoon.

Thank you.

HON.
Thank you.

HON.

JOSEPHINE MAKIEU: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me add my voice to my colleagues who have already spoken and thanked His Excellency, for nominating these fine nominees today before us.

We have no doubt that His Excellency, is using his lens to really bring people who matters, people who can deliver.

And we are always ready to stand by him to see that our people who are brought here, are well-advised and we wish they will take the advice to their offices.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the nominees are very much qualified, but let me zoom in on few; Dr Augustine Thomas Roberts.

He has been my mentor with the Wealth Project, empowerment of women and leadership of woman in this country, especially in Kenema.

He has been the first person to really manage the project, wherein many women were brought together and were capacitated, and were taught how to be self-reliant, how to do their politics, how to solve their problems.
Dr Augustine T. Roberts, if you are seeing me standing here today, I can say it is your making [Applause] through your Organization, “the Wealth Project”, with your wealth 41 and knowledge you gave us.

We are here as women, who will ever remain to appreciate you, because you were very, very, supportive to us today to stand in public and speak, to be a mentor for other women down there you made us proud.
I have no doubt that when you are taking this office as a Chairman, of the National Fertilizer Regulatory Board; you are going to do more than what you have been doing.
Let me tell you Dr Augustine T. Roberts, the office you are going to take is going to be an eye- opener for this country, because most of our crops that are going to be planted may not give better yield, but with fertilizers well-applied, and well-supplied especially to our constituents, the farmers in our constituencies, you will not regret it.

So if you are going to office, we want to see that no fertilizer is taken out again to be sold, because this has been the problem we have been encountering.
Fertilizers have been going away with no cause, we do not know or have evidence, but that is what we have been hearing, so we do not want it to repeat [Undertone].

Mr Speaker, let me tell Dr Augustine T. Roberts, that you are going in the capacity as Chairman of Fertilizer Regulatory Board, but mind you, you are under the Ministry of Agriculture which is one of the Flagship Projects for the “New Direction” of His Excellency, the President, Dr Julius Maada Bio.

We want to see our Agriculture becoming.


If you want to have any programme with Agriculture, you want to see where to really get your fertilizer, who and who to get, befriend the Honourable Members of Parliament, because we know them.

We have a Committee of Agriculture here, which I happened to be a Member.

We do not want to see again this year pass by without doing anything for Agriculture; we are even worried because we have started the season.
Some of us have water lowlands, Boli lands, where very soon water will start to cover, and we want to see plenty rice this year if you are hearing about food sufficiency, His Excellency and the people of this country are proposing.

We want to see enough rice, but to get a very good yield, we need a very good fertilizer and the crops maybe with time when you get down to the Constituencies you will see.
We want to make sure that all Honourable Members of Parliament are entitled to fertilizer, because when they get the fertilizer they know where they use to take then, they will take then to the appropriate quarters and we want you to have this in mind, that some of us will be knocking at your office 42 door, we know how eloquent you are, we know how diligent you are, we know how you are able.
We say thanks to you, some of us women; if I am proud today in my Constituency, and my women are proud of having money in their boxes, loans and savings it is you.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, when the time came to pay back, where they were putting their monies, nobody chased them now, because they are really taking their fiscal monies to loan themselves.

So this money they loaned is now off our heads, because they are not asking so much from Micro-credits organisations again.
The first time they were given women Micro-credits, some of them will ran away, they used to have problems with their husbands at home, but this time round, with the Loans and Savings Association you have taught us, we in turn taught our people, so many of that is now in operations in our Constituencies.

So continue the good work you have been doing and make our President very proud, so that at the end of the day Sierra Leone will experience a big change and we will be proud as a country.

Thank you!
Thank you!

I am please asking all the Members to hastily approve all our nominees as they are very unique and they can do it, have no doubt.

THE SPEAKER: I thank all the Honourable Members, who have taken the Floor thus far, I am now going to prepared a new list of speakers, starting with the Honourable Paramount Chief Bai Kurr, Honourable Sama will be next, the two ladies will follow, and Honourable Dr Kalokoh will be next in that order please!

So, the Honourable Paramount Chief can start now!

HON.
HON.

P.C BAI KURR KANAGBARO SANKA III: Thank you Mr Speaker, we want to thank God Almighty, and His Excellency the President, for nominating these great people.

When we were reading or following the reading of their statements in the Report, we found out that everyone is an expert.

And Mr Speaker, I am so happy, usually I hardly contribute to the nominees to Parliament, but I have here very interesting people, and interesting jobs assigned to them by His Excellency the President.
I want to congratulate my previous speakers, because the way they took the 43 debate is very interesting, and I wish these nominees will have the Hansard to listen to what the Parliamentarians said about them.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I would recommend to this Administration through you, that any time we have nominees in this Parliament the Hansard should be given to them, because key issues are being raised by the Parliamentarians.
Let them have the Hansard to recognise and realise what Parliament said about them and what they expect of them.

Let them just do not forget when they leave here and say “Oh Parliament has approved me!” What did Parliament tell you?

Mr Speaker, through you let us take note of the addresses of these great people and send the Hansard to them.

That is something I will put a Motion here in due course for nominees to be given the Hansard, like Honourable Kandeh K. Yumkella said; they are now 395.
I want to congratulate you all particularly, to Professor Abu Sesay.

You have done a great job in this country.

You came to the University of Njala when things were tough, and were rough, but you put up great buildings there with guest houses that could bring in people to lodged and be entertained in those premises.
I knew the battles you went through, I knew the contributions you made, I knew the difficulties that were brought to you, the challenges, and today the Government of Sierra Leone, the President; has decided to bring you back not only as individual, but as Chairman of the National Seeds Board.

I am a farmer, I grew up in the farm, I slept in the farm, I was a small boy by then in class one sleeping in the farm, came back to the school and back to the farm, I know the difficulties farmers are going through.
So I am appealing to you, as an intellectual please, go there and assess what does this mean; “Proposed Chairman Seeds Board”.

You are a great man, you could have left this country like you did before, went and served other side and came back to serve your country.

So, we want to thank His Excellency, the President.

Mr Speaker Sir, we are now talking of the Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]; end poverty, end hunger, health, all of these are in the field of Agriculture.
Out of the seventeen SDGs, at least seven are related to Agriculture.

When I was in the Pan African Parliament, I was the President of the SDGs in collaboration and working 44 together with the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP].

They just left here less than two weeks ago; when they came trying to see how well Sierra Leone could match up with the SDGs, because the SDGs are being turned over left and right.

In the 90s or early 90s, they called them [FF], Food for All.
After that, Education for All, Health for All.

What did Sierra Leone gain?

Nothing!

By the time we were trying to develop them, war came in and destroyed all those programmes.

After the war, they came up with the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs], the MDGs are the same like the FF; Education for All, Food for All, Health for All, you see, they keep changing the nomenclature, but the essences are the same.
Mr proposed Chairman, I am sure with all the good things they have said about you here and about all those great people sitting there, they have never brought in anybody here as a nominee, that I have heard any Member of Parliament saying No!

To say, he/she is not qualified, not good, and not capable of doing the job he/she has been nominated for.

We all just tell them they are good, they are great.
From 1996, it is only one person that we did not pass in this Parliament, but all the rest we say, they are great people, good people, they are experts, where is Sierra Leone today, with all the experts we have?

Where is the creativity, the innovation, the incentives to make Sierra Leone a better place for us?

Mr Professor, you stand a big chance to support Agriculture, to end hunger in this country, that is Goal No.

2.
2.

And there is no medicine in the world that can cure a human being than food, food is the best medicine.

Without food you drink medicine you die within ten minutes.

You become very hungry two days without eating; take two paracetamol, you will sweat and collapse.

So food is the best medicine.


As an Economist you know very well, that you start to be rich after eating good food; all this good clothes that we are wearing, the shoes that we are wearing, is because we have eaten and we have excess amount of money to buy clothes.

If am hungry, I would sell my watch, I would not even be able to stand here and talk, the brain will not work, and when we talk of seeds as farmer, they give the food very late.
You give a farmer in July, August to go and plough; this is what is happening in this country.

What has happened in the years before, we ordered rice from Ghana, thousands and thousands of bushels, Mr Speaker, Honourable Members that rice did not germinate.

They took the people to court; I know 45 that, I do not want to call names.

They were Director Generals.

They gave me five hundred bushels to shut up my mouth, I said No!
I am going to stand in this Well of Parliament and say the rice you gave did not germinate.

At that time I was sitting right there, this is what is going on.

Rice that is ordered for $10 a bushel, when it comes to Sierra Leone is $69, it is terrible.

We created the Seed Bank, so therefore, I am very happy to see somebody who can stand up even when everybody is against you, will always stand for the truth.

So I am very happy for you to be the proposed Chairman of the National Seeds Board.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, the second person I am going to mention quickly, is the proposed Chairman of the Fertilizer Regulatory Board, somebody was saying they will knock on your doors, I do not know if you are going to distribute fertilizers or to regulate.

When you listened to the Commissions of Inquiry, we know what is going on with the fertilizer in this country.
Mr Speaker, so, all of these people are great people and the time is coming to 3 o’clock and so many good sensible people want to speak, but as a grass root man from the lowest Administration of this country, the Paramount Chief, I do not know who introduced the word “Paramount Chief”, they should have said “Gbenkah Chiefs”, the Chiefs are always the “Gbenkah”.

I know what “Gbenkah” means, S.O.

[2], “Wi nor get Money”, Poor Chief and the people expect so much from us, so we are begging you all.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I know Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara, I know Mr David Sengo Woobay, and I know the late Man Pa Gbindi who was Director of Sports in this country, when I was at Boys’ School Magburaka.

They used to go there to do the Inter- Secondary School Sports, very interesting, when they were bringing us to the National Stadium, now called Siaka Steven’s Stadium or Brookfields at that time.

It was a learning process for some of us; it was the first time we came to Freetown.
So your name is well-known Sir, try to make it possible for Sierra Leoneans to watch and listen to our games than tell us about Manchester United, Manchester City, you know the time we spent listening to this European Football, even we could have spent it in our farms, believe me we would not be importing rice from other countries.

I have seen a husband beating his wife because she put off the Television Sir, because Manchester City and Manchester United were playing.
The lady came in with Love saying S.O [2] “Baby leh 46 wi go”.

So we want to hear now Blackpool, East End Lions, we want to hear the Kenema, Bo, Makeni, Bai Bureh Warriors from Port Loko, so please believe me sir, you know some of us are passionate about this country, we are ashamed of Sierra Leone.

Why do not we have enough and good water to drink, with all the experts we have?

So you are experts, are you going to go back as experts leaving us worst than we were?
But I expect that the pareto-optimality to exist.

In Economics Pareto-optimality we are better off than where we started and I am sure at the end of your tenure, Sierra Leone will be better off than where we are today.

Thank you very much Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak to this great people.

I humbly bow down and expect the best from you.

Thank you.

HON.

SHAKA M. SAMA: Thank you very much.


THE SPEAKER: I do not want at this point to impose any time limit, I will leave it to the discretion of Honourable Members, I know time is far spent, let me start with you Honourable Shaka M. Sama to see whether some self-discipline will hold sway, failing that, I will have no option but to impose the time limit.

HON.

SHAKA M. SAMA: How many minutes are you given me Mr Speaker?

THE SPEAKER: No!

It will be self-regulatory for now.

HON.


SHAKA M. SAMA: Mr Speaker, I want to thank the President for nominating the persons before us.

Most of them are retirees and with a lot of experiences, when people retired, they are not tired, so I am happy that they are having them on Board with a wealth of experience to contribute to national development that is one.
Secondly Mr Speaker, I want to mention somebody who has been a lecturer at Njala University, somebody I admired, somebody who was a very decent person, somebody who was a role model that made us what we are today.

That person is Professor Abu Sesay and I was a Biology Student at Njala University.

He was one of my first lecturers, I remembered during the first lesson he actually made us to fit into the University system.
He asked us to define photosynthesis, we gave our Secondary School definitions and he told us that it was wrong, one thing you are going to learn is that 47 most of the things they told you and some of the definitions were wrong.

Some of them were just over simplified to accommodate your young minds, so we learnt a lot from the Professor and we admired him a lot, so I am happy that he is here before us and we want this entire House to approve the nomination of Professor Abu Sesay and the other nominees.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now to Mr David Sengo Woobay, I want to make an appeal here from the South, I have received several complaints from employees of the Sport Council in Bo, whenever salaries increment are made, they are not affected.

And they are paid very late, sometimes they owed arrears going up to three months, so I want you to use your position to please help them, you are one of them.
Then to all the nominees, this is about changing the living conditions of Sierra Leoneans, it should not be business as usual, when you are given a golden opportunity to serve, there are thousands and millions of Sierra Leoneans waiting to serve in those positions, His Excellency the President, nominated you because he believes in your capability to perform.

I want to appeal to you, please when you go to those offices, be innovative, and try to bring the change that will push our country forward.
We are very rich potentially, but ironically we are one of the poorest countries on earth.

So we depend on you to help His Excellence, the President, to bring a change that will change the lives of Sierra Leoneans.

Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for regulating himself so amenably, very well and no doubt this is the product that was nurtured by Professor Abu Sesay, you have just exemplified that.

Honourable Rebecca you are next.

HON.


REBECCA Y. KAMARA: Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I stand here today very much happy, because of one nominee.

I know a lot have been said about him by Honourable Josephine Makieu, but I will not feel good if I do not make my own contribution and that is Dr Augustine T. Roberts.

I am not just speaking here because today I am an Honourable Member of Parliament, but Dr Augustine T. Roberts has been very instrumental in bringing up women in this country.
Not just to say the wealth Programme, but for other projects in World Vision.

Dr Augustine T. Roberts has not 48 been just sitting at his office as the boss of all Bosses no!

Dr Augustine T. Roberts has been grooming women to become self-reliant in the area of Agriculture, leadership skills entrepreneurship and today if you go right round the country, you will meet a lot of women who will make reference to Dr Augustine T. Roberts.
Because if you see workers at the field working, it is because of the leadership of that particular team and Dr Augustine T. Roberts has served in that particular capacity.

To ensure that they do not just implement for implementation sake like other NGOs do in this country, he was always there to ensure that he gets the result expected, through the project goals and objectives.
And today, if we are here most of us as women, like Honourable Josephine Makieu, Honourable Emilia L. Tongi, Honourable Zainab and I, we are as a result of what Dr Augustine T. Roberts did for women in this country.

We are proud of him, in fact, he is over qualified or they are all over qualified.

He is really very qualified and what I want to say to Dr Augustine T. Roberts here is, please sir, you have made your name and now you have got this appointment.
Looking at it, it is a very new office sir; do not let your self be messed up, because we have heard a lot of fertilizer scandal in this country.

And now they have made you Chairman of that particular sector, no matter how tough it might be, if you see things are not going the way you want it to be.

I know you are a very disciplined man, so resign not to spoil your good name that you have worked for all these years, just not to spoil it because of this one appointment.
If you are in your office, ensure that you are still discipline that you have been putting in all your area of work that we know you for, and you see people are not really working in line with the Aims and Objectives of that particular office, you try to correct it and it not working, or maybe people start politicising it, Pa duya S.O.
[2] “kommot dea nor poil you name”, because we have seen so many great men being put down, as a result of the fact that when they are appointed to certain offices, people will use their influence to corrupt them.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Member, except that advice is very deifies, you are asking him to resign?

HON.

REBECCA Y. KAMARA: No, not now.

49 THE SPEAKER: And take the rotten one of out.

HON.
HON.

REBECCA Y. KAMARA: Sorry Sir, but what we are saying, if you are in an office and you see things are not going the way you really want them to go and your name is been put in disrepute, you won’t stand it.

And we as women will not want to see this fine Professor going down the drain.

THE SPEAKER: You should discipline the people who are delinquent, rather than resigned.

HON.

REBECCA Y. KAMARA: Noted Sir!

And he has noted it.


I want to talk on what the Chairman for C for C and the Chief had already said; we know in this country when the planting season is here, the season would be far gone before seeds are supplied.

I know the constrains while talking to the Chairman for Seeds multiplication, we would also want to talk to the Government please, it is not just about appointing these people, but to really equip them to see them perform.
At times, these nominees will be fine people, they would really want to work, but because they do not have what it takes for them to really perform, sometimes, they will just sit down and we would be complaining that they are not doing anything, so I am appealing to His Excellency in as much as we appreciate him for appointing these very good nominees.
We still appeal to His Excellency, Dr Julius Maada Bio and the Government of Sierra Leone to ensure that these nominees really get what it takes for them to work for this country.

I am encouraging all of us to join hands with the State Lottery.

Lotto has gone down the drain, now we have Mercury taking over Lotto, and Mercury is owned by a foreigner and Lotto is our own baby.

What are we doing?

We are seeing Sierra Leoneans marketing Mercury instead of Lotto.
So in effect, Lotto is just considered in the city here, and not even in the provinces, so all of us have a task, because some of us really play Lotto or Mercury.

Let us go back to our baby, let us go back to Lotto and ensure that this of our baby wakes-up again.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, once more, I want to thank all of us and I want to also admonish partners who have been supporting the Government of Sierra Leone, to ensure that all these nominees, the 395 that have appointed so far, since the start of 50 this Government, we want to encourage our Donor Partners and other Government Functionaries to ensure that these people work properly.

And I am encouraging all of us that we approve these fine nominees, so that they will start work.

Thank you very much.


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member for her contribution to the debate.

Honourable Emilia L. Tongi, you have the Floor.

HON.

EMILLA L. TONGI: Thank you very much Mr Speaker, as my colleague just said, I am very happy, happy for His Excellency, the President for giving us this beautiful nominees.

And I want to talk about two people among the group, because I know the academic badges they have.

If they put then in any institution they can make it.
But most importantly, I want to talk about one of the nominees here today; the Lady Zainab Kamara.

Suspension of S. O.

5[2] HON.

EMILLA L. TONGI: I want to talk about Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara.

I admired your nomination because you are the right, the correct and the perfect nominee for this particular position.

You are a sport woman and with the experience you have had in life, I know you will make a difference in the sport section, thank you for being there and I thank His Excellency.
I do not know how comes he gets around looking for these perfect nominees across the country.

As I have always said SLPP is S.O [2] “den sabi book”, so to get this beautiful and qualified nominee you just do it like this and you get them.

And I want to talk about our baby and who is our baby?

For me a baby is somebody you look at and then put smiles on his/her face.

And this is how I consider Dr Augustine Thomas Roberts.
Dr Augustine T. Roberts you are our baby, you have done so much for women in this country especially, during the elections and we love you for that, and today you have been nominated to go to the fertilizer sector in this country.

And His Excellency the President, is working hands in gloves with all sectors concern to put food on our table and you have been chosen once again to lead this battle, please go there and do your best, make us proud.

Make Sierra Leoneans eat their natural food.


I am from the east end of Sierra Leone and our ground there is very 51 fertile, but we lack seeds, please think about us in the Kissi Tongi Chiefdom Constituency 001 in Kaliahun District where I hale from.
Please when you are distributing those seeds, think about us, those of us over there are providing food stuff for the city; Freetown, and trust us if you do the right thing banana and oranges, we buy them cheap, because last week I asked for one banana it was one thousand Leones.

When we can get it there, three for Five Hundred Leones, so you see it is easy to live in this country, provided we have the right people in the right positions to do the right thing.
So we know you have been chosen and I know you will go there to do the right thing and I am so proud of you.

The women in Parliament know so much about you before you were nominated to this particular position.

Welcome and congratulations to you, so therefore, I would not like to waste much time because my friends, I will say the same thing on and on.

Welcome and I wish each and every one of you success ahead, good health and make His Excellency, the President very proud.

Thank you very much.


THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Lady for her contribution the last Speaker on my list is Honourable Dr Kalokoh and I do not know whether anyone has any new thing to add, maybe we wine up the debate after him.

HON.

DR MAHMOUD M. KALOKOH: Mr Speaker, thank you very much for allowing me to contribute to this all important debate, the nominees has been described by the Appointments Committee as suitable and qualified.
But I want to entreat them when they are going to their various institutions, let them go there with commitments, commitment to effect change so as to add value in the service delivery of the institutions to which they are appointed by His Excellency the President.

Mr Speaker, I want to continue to encourage Professor Abu Sesay to take along with him the transformational methods he used at the Njala University to his new appointment.

And this nation will continue to be proud of you.


I will not go away from the probing questions been asked by the Appointments Committee and the answers you proffered.

Those are the areas we are going to hold you responsible, for the person going to chair the National Fertilizer Regulating Board, we have serious problem for fertilizer in this 52 country.
The last season, I cultivated a farm of over four hundred and twenty acres, I could not have up to fifty bags of fertilizers, it is very serious and that will definitely hinder the good yield of our farms.

It will take a lot of people out of the farming process, because they will become discouraged of failing year in year out.
So I want to ask you that you make sure that fertilizer becomes utilitarian goods and not a store- stuff-good, please also help us as the regulating agency, and you have the mandate to regulate fertilizers for those who will bring it into the country.

Please make sure that you regulate the price system of fertilizers so that our grass root farmer will be able to purchase fertilizer for the benefit of this country.
Going down to the nominees going to the sports sector, we need a peaceful and friendly sporting environment, all of us know the problems of sport in this country and you have a task to ensure that we need to change the narrative, please go and do the needful so that we have a peaceful sporting environment in this country.
Seven of you have been nominated going to the State Lottery, you are here as a team, please move with that team, a cohesive team with a glue, develop a strategic focus to ensure that you decentralize the operations of the State Lottery and also in the strategic programme that you are going to set, make sure that you move from the old system of machinery to modern system of machinery.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, if you look at Mercury, all over the country you can see their machines, we want to see State Lottery equipment equally, we want to see the Company reach that stage and even beyond, because it is our national baby.

For the ladies they usually say; what man can do, a woman can do it better, I have no reason to tell you what you are going to do.

You are managers of home, you make us confortable, I hope you will translate that to make this nation confortable.
I wish you all a successful tenure in your various institutions, but let me caution you, today you are seated there very humble, immediately you move from Parliament, you change your behaviour, I am sorry to use that word, change the behaviours.
This is a House of Parliament that need continuous respect, but for some of these institutions, some of these MDAs, when we call them to come to Parliament, they will begin to tell you S.O [2] ‘‘Ah, den call we for moni, we are not calling you money, we have national functions 53 to perform: oversight functions, probing into your activities, we make laws, so if we call you to come and tell us your challenges maybe we will proffer advice to mitigate the challenges affecting your institution so that the service delivery you provide will go on smoothly, Mr Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity.
THE SPEAKER: Well quite frankly, I find myself in a little situation here; I thought I had only two to contend with, one more speaker?

Naturally, I will give preference to the Leader of the C for C, to kick start the last innings; Madam is only now I am taking notice of you.

Okay, the self-regulation continues, were you here when I imposed it?

HON.

EMERSON S. LAMINA [Leader of the Opposition C for C]: Yes sir.

THE SPEAKER: Good!

I do not want to indicate time, but please!

HON.


EMERSON S. LAMINA: I will not in any case disappoint you.

THE SPEAKER: Okay you will be the last Speaker in the order of yourself, the lady and the two Honourable gentlemen.

HON.

EMERSON S. LAMINA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, I am standing on Section 73 of Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution, which makes the President a Member of this Parliament whether covertly or overtly, I want to congratulate the nominees before us.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, reading their resume shows that they have impacted the nation socio-Economic life, which makes me to have no incline of doubt in them.

Like Professor Kandeh Yumkellah here I was not privilege to have been taught by Professor Abu Sesay, Professor Augustine T. Roberts and Mrs Zainab Augusta Baby Milton, I work very closely with them by the time I was serving the student Union Presidency.

To say the least, they worked have been very amiable.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, whilst we will continue to implore all of them to work hard, two worries came out from their resume, number one; we noticed the rate or the speed at which Mercury is dwarfing our State Lottery and I hope those that will work in that particular institution will create a change.

Number two; I also see parade 54 of clergies, both Alhaji’s and Pastors, Reverend participating in the State Lottery.
How be it, the Socio-Economic benefits we will take into account, but we would rather prefer that CVs and work life be compatible for the benefit of Sierra Leone.

All in all Mr Speaker, honourable members, like among the people of Rwanda, I also call upon you that your work life will transcend tribe, will transcend region, will transcend politics and will transcend patronage, thank you very much Mr speaker.

THE SPEAKER: You have not disappointed me at all, thank you.
Yes Honourable Alice Kumabeh, you have the Floor.

HON.

ALICE J. KUMABEH: Thank you very much Mr speaker for catching my eye at last.

I am asking the Deputy Leader of Government Business to make a clarification for the hearing of the public and for the records.

During the interview, they were telling us that Rev.

Joe Bob Amara is a proposed Member, Board of Directors’ Sierra Leone State Lottery Limited, and on the recommendations, it reads Rev.
Joe Bob Amara Member Road Maintenance Fund Administration that one needs to be clarified for the records and for the hearing of the public.

I am really moved by the Road Maintenance Fund Administration, knowing Rev.
Joe Bob Amara as a man of God, and also knowing the importance of the road maintenance fund to the development of this country, if administered well, the people of Sierra Leone will benefit because if we are talking about successful and sustainable agricultural activities, then we should be talking about good roads.

Most of the trunk roads and feeder roads leading to cities, and villages to farms, are in deplorable states.

So at this time I want to encourage Rev.


Joe Bob Amara knowing his background to be straight forward, reliable, trustworthy that he can use that office to see that our roads are really made and those to be rehabilitated, rehabilitated very well.

And to satisfy the local content policy this time around, we do not want to see cross country contractors for instance like leaving the South to go and work in the North.
In every region, there are a good number of contractors working there, let us make use of our local people.

Whatever proceed they receive, is going to be a development on their part and the very area they are living in.

Having said that I want us to approve these fine nominees by his Excellency the president, I thank you all.

55 THE SPEAKER: Thank you Honourable Member, Honourable Alu-Conteh followed by Honourable Charles Conteh in that order and you will be the last speakers.

HON.
HON.

ALUSINE K. ALU-CONTEH: Mr Speaker, first and foremost I want to thank you for catching my eye, indeed this is a wonderful day, and I want to commend His Excellency the President, for sending these nominees for scrutiny in the House of Parliament.

Indeed the leaders can be very good, the desire of the President is to make sure that we have a better Sierra Leone but people who are put in certain offices; are the ones creating problems.
My admonishment to you people is that the President in his wisdom has appointed you to act in the capacity that will benefit this nation, the President, in his wisdom has appointed you not for you to be getting any clash, let me focus on the nominees for the Sierra Leone State Lottery.
In England and other places, the Lottery Company takes care of whatever sporting organisation that they have like in England all the international sporting events that they are having, the Lottery in England is taking care of that but here in Sierra Leone Mercury a private company it is supporting the Sport Sector, so to you the nominees, I am praying that when you go to that office, we will experience great difference more especially that we have two men of God, I am referring to the pastors, because that is where my faith is, we have two men of God.
First when I heard your names and I noticed that you are Reverends and I started asking myself questions, how can a Reverend be involved in gambling?

But what I want to say, God knows what he is doing, maybe God has placed you in those positions so that there will be great change and we are yet looking for that great change in that office.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, now in the area of sports, let me commend Mr David Sengo Woobay.
Mr David Sengo Woobay was one of the longest serving Directors in the Sports Council.

During the reign of Sara Madi Kabba, Tolla Thomson and even when Akar was alive, this man Mr Woobay played a great role, we experienced great event in this nation, we experienced great victory in this nation but for now there are lots of problems in the sport sector.
I do believe that Mr David S. Woobay and the other two people, will create great difference in the sport sector, I believe with the experience 56 that Mr David S. Woobay when he was in the sport before as a Director and also Chairman of the Moyamba District Council, those experiences you will take to this authority, so that we will experience great change in the sport sector again.
There are lots of problems and it is not good today, Seven people are here for approval for the State Lottery Company and again three of you are here for the Sport Authority of Sierra Leone, so if you blend these two, we believe we are going to get a great support from the State Lottery, we believe we are going to see great sporting events in this nation not too long from now.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, it is my desire that we approve these fine people so that they will go out there to carry out their tasks that will help this nation.

I thank you all.

THE SPEAKER: Honourable Member, I thank you for respecting the old adage; “Brevity is truly the soul of wit”.

You are the last Speaker!

HON.

JOHN C. CONTEH: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, let me join colleagues to say thanks to His Excellency the President, for sending to us very good nominees.
Nominees that have gone through the Appointments Committee and they are here now for us to give them our approval.

Mr Speaker, let me just zoom in on one or two; I will start with Professor Abu Sesay.

When you call the name Professor Abu Sesay, you will talk about development wherever he had served, you will know that Processor Abu Sesay have been marked in that institution or whatever office he had being nominated to serve.
Professor Abu Sesay during the days of Njala University, if Njala University is today being considered as one of the best universities in Sierra Leone, it is not unrelated to the work of Professor Abu Sesay.

This is because when Professor Abu Sesay was there at the helm of things structures were in place, standards were in place and Njala University was considered the best University in Sierra Leone when you Google it in those days.
So Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I have no doubt in Professor Abu Sesay, I know with his experience in the academic field and other areas definitely he will add dividend to the office he has been appointed to serve.

57 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, let me again take a look at another nominee; Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara.

Mrs Zainab Bintu Kamara from her disposition you know she is a very simple woman, very hard working, steadfast and wherever she has been placed to serve, she will do it diligently.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, she has been an Administrator as you can see from what the report is saying, she is currently the Head Teacher for one of the SLMB Schools.

She has made a mark in that school Mr Speaker, she has transformed that school, she is loved by both pupils and teachers of the school because of her humour and passion for children and also for the job.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I have no doubt in her; she will definitely perform in that institution.
I am happy the institution she is being sent to and couple of others like the Reverends and Alhajis that are going there, definitely we know, God will work wonders in that institution.
It is not a mistake that His Excellency appointed you people to go and serve there, it is a blessing because the institution we are talking about; the Sierra Leone State Lottery, nothing can be said about it currently because it is dead, now you talk about Mercury, they are now the leaders in the area of sport betting and lottery.
So you people have been nominated to serve there, I know with the intervention of God and with your expertise you will definitely succeed in your respective institutions and I would definitely pray for you people to succeed just as what my Colleague Honourable Alusine said, we want the institution to see how best they can come in and help in the area of sports activities, this is how it works in other countries.
So definitely we will pray for you people to succeed, we will give you people our support, whenever you need our support you come to us, definitely we will support you.

We will continue the drive for the re-engineering of those institutions, so I hope and pray that you succeed.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, without wasting time, I believe these nominees can stand the test of time, I believe yes they can perform and because of that Mr Speaker I do not want to waste time, let me just implore all Honourable Members in this House let speedily ratify and approve these nominees I thank you Mr Speaker.

58 THE SPEAKER: Thank you very much Honourable Member, I now call on the Leader of the Opposition to begin the process of concluding the debate.

HON.
HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, Members of Parliament, of course, we all have conceded from the beginning of this debate that once more the President has met one of his statutory commitments by nominating suitable Sierra Leoneans to occupy very important positions in Government and for that, a good number of Members of Parliament have congratulated and thanked the President.

I would equally thank the President, for performing this very noble duty.
Well again Mr Speaker I just want to note and it can also be recorded that this is some of the longest debating periods we have had for a long time, which means that this group of nominees have benefitted a lot in listening and hearing good things from very noble Members of Parliament.
In some cases those that might not be very lucky sat there and for a very short time the debate was over, but in their own case, the debate was extended by Mr Speaker for a reason which I do not know, but I think he has performed a remarkable job by extending the debate itself.
Having stated that Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I would state here that Professor Abu Sesay, a classmate of mine, we all entered Njala University in 1965, and in other words, we were the second batch of students to be enrolled in the University System established by the Government of Sierra Leone at the time when Salia Jusu Sheriff was still Minister of Education, and when other people were playing major roles as well.
When we first met Professor Abu Sesay, indeed most of us noticed why he went to Njala University; he was committed to his studies and even when it came to choose subjects of specialisation to know that he meant well, and he meant good for himself, he went straight away for the sciences and this is how he became a scientist over the years.

For those of us who saw him in those early years, we always are very proud that there was a young man who knew exactly what he wanted to do in life.
Unlike other people who visit Winter Quarters as their abode, Abu Sesay did not frequently go to Winter Quarters too often, I did not even know whether he used to go there late at night; but 59 that was a place where many people would want to go and visit.

Well, I would not say anything about myself now.

THE SPEAKER: Sorry!

Did I miss the name?

Did you say winter?

HON.

IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: Winter Quarters.

THE SPEAKER: And a place that has no winter?

HON.


IBRAHIM B. KARGBO: The quarter that housed the beautiful ladies [undertone.]
So Mr Speaker, Abu Sesay metamorphosed into an academic I can say that when I first entered Parliament during the era of President Momoh, the President insisted that we should visit Njala University College, then Abu Sesay was a lecturer there all be it a very bitter lecturer, because the moment we arrived, he complained that the Principal and the other staff who were in charge of running the University did not care about the University; we had no place to sleep, he said well what we will do, you find a place to sleep he said, but when I become a Principal here all of this will change, as if he was prophesying years later about ten when he returned from abroad, he changed the face of Njala University College and people started getting places where they could sleep.
When I was Minister of Information and Communications, one of the reasons why my Government concentrated on Njala for the rehabilitation programme after the war years, was because the President at the time, President Koroma said, Professor Abu Sesay is a serious Principal let us give him help and that was why he went there almost every weekend.
Today he is here appointed to man a very important office in society that has to do with seed multiplication which to us is important; I was in my Constituency about two weeks ago, and our people for lack of vocabulary that was suitable, simply said, “dea res nor dea gro now”, that was their own way of putting it.
But of course, somebody else who was a little bit knowledgeable in their midst said possibly, because we do not have good seeds, myself, I was not too sure whether it was good seeds or some other reason; but all I can say to Professor is that, the business of Seeds must be looked into so that our people must be certain that they are handling good Seeds.

Our people are farmers after all, they have no other jobs to do and in Sierra Leone, rice is the main stay of the economy.
The main stay of our 60 livelihood and therefore, the very sustenance of the ordinary Sierra Leonean, the ordinary villager would depend on whether he could have access to good rice seeds.

I know you are a determined man and you would also be able to use the knowledge you have acquired over the years to address issues such as seed rice and other seeds.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Dr Augustine T. Roberts, I kept on asking myself a question why were the two departments not merged?
But later on somebody who was more knowledgeable in agriculture than me said, it is possible that the Government wanted to place more emphasis in the area of fertiliser and then placed another emphasis on seed multiplication.

But what I know is that from what the women have been saying about you, since five days ago, there is no doubt that you are a popular man in Sierra Leone.
Almost all the women who were Members of the panel and even here today, most of the people who said good things about you and who extol your brilliance were the women, that does not mean that we the men do not respect you so whether soils in Sierra Leone are alkaline or whether they are acidic, most of us would not know, but we would depend on your knowledge and your future access to fertilizer to help us develop agriculture in a manner that is acceptable and successful to the country as a whole.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, Mr David Sengo Woobay and I were friends for close to thirty years, we have a common problem, and the common problem is that we owe Mrs Wurie some money which we have still not paid.

He gave me the assurance a few days ago that he went there alone and paid Mrs Wurie I am not too sure, Mrs Wurie resided at Mission Road but Mrs Wurie herself was dead.
But David Woobay himself was a dedicated Sierra Leonean, I respect him because each time he undertook an enterprise, he always ensure that it came out well not only in the area of football and soccer, but also in the area of politics; when he told me that he was going to become the head of the Moyamba District Council, I was a little bit surprised I said okay let us see how a footballer can become a Councillor; but of course, he became a Councillor and succeeded.
So Mr Speaker, we have gentlemen here including David Woobay, I do not know whether he has abandoned his Volkswagen but we used to admire him 61 because he kept his own Volkswagen well we did not keep our own Volkswagen.

We had a little bit of difficulties in the area of money.
But Mr Speaker, David Woobay is a dedicated Sierra Leonean and I think, seriously too Mr Speaker that the President, did not make any error in appointing him to this very important position of being in charge of football in Sierra Leone.

I would say that because I am one of the bitter people in this country regarding the state of football.

I feel angry, I feel bitter, because I know that we have the capacity to improve football, but nothing is done about that.
Even though I am supporting Blackpool, all I know is that something could be done so David, what you can do perhaps is to transfer your knowledge to other people so that we can improve soccer or football in this country.

Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, for the other nominees are equally very, very important; believe me, I always want to see ladies succeed and that President Maada Bio keeps on appointing ladies to important positions makes me feel good, why?
Because out of all my children except one, they were going to be two; all of them are girls so when you see a system that is propagating womanhood, you feel happy especially, when you also know that women have the tendency, and the capacity to succeed better than most men and therefore, when you give them an opportunity, they will succeed then you feel more comfortable.
So again, for those of us who are on this side, we would continue to state that when good decisions are taken by this Government, we would support the Government, but when bad decisions are taken of course, we would say it loud and clear.

But the important thing is that the choice of people today who everyone have congratulated for performing important roles over the years cannot go unnoticed.
Alhaji Fofanah comes from my own part of the country, I do not need to blow his horn again, but his presence here is noted by us and then we also would state that as time goes on, we will begin to visit their offices.

This Parliament possesses the capacity to do oversights, whether the word capacity is correct I do not know but of course, it has the capacity.
The important thing is that from time to time, we will visit your institutions to find out whether you are performing those duties, those roles for which you have been appointed because somebody made the point that if you 62 fail then of course, the Government has failed, and if you fail you would have disappointed President, Julius Maada Bio.
We on this side would support your nomination by Mr President and we on this side would support your clearance to go back to your workplace and begin to perform the duties for which you have been appointed.

Mr Speaker, I thank you very much for given me the opportunity to make a statement or two on this issue, I thank you very much.

MR SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo for his contribution and finally, Acting Leader of Government Business.

HON.

MATHEW S. NYUMA: Thank you Mr Speaker.


Thank you Honourable Members from the other side of the aisle, thank you all for your contributions and I believe we presented good candidates for the various positions, and based on their resume we were able to give them a better description.

We also did our best Mr Speaker, to scrutinize them, we made some corrections during the vetting periods, we are happy that this House is giving us its support in approving these Presidential Nominees.
But let me quickly join you to make the correction for Rev.

Joe Bob Amara for Road Maintenance Funds for the records.

In the body it was clear that Rev.

Bob Joe Amara was nominated for the position of Road Maintenance Fund.

Mr Speaker, thank you for your correction; that was a typographical error, thank you for bringing me to speed.
I do not really want to single out a nominee Mr Speaker because these nominees are coming from the Government side, but I am also proud for us to also have such nominees presented to this House today.

We saw beautiful curriculum vitae full of enthusiasm, we all observed during the vetting period and the way they spoke to the Members of the Committee.

I want to urge them that it is not mere rhetoric but to go there to do the work.
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, you can agree with me that we now see Board Members here going beyond our mandate trying to be the head of institutions it is happening in certain places; I would not name names.

The last time I urged Members of various Committees to properly do their oversights functions; you cannot interfere with the working of the administration that is not your mandate definitely.
When they 63 come to us they give us very beautiful adjectives, we have all heard from lottery, they have marketing strategies, they want to spread lottery all over the countries but what we want to remind them is that, there are rules governing each and every institution we have, these are Act of Parliament that is why they are here; but when some Board Members gets to their institutions, they feel they can create laws for themselves, because they want to benefit themselves it is not like that.
They have to change the narrative, when you go to any department, if you are a Board Member, work within the confines of the law even when you want to do transformation, it is not you alone, it has to be a team work, so even when the Committee was conducting the interview it was clear that most of the nominees had good plans and strategies going to their respective institutions but it has to be implemented collectively so again it is a team work.
You know how much I want to put lottery at that platform; we want to see the State Lottery Company competing with other private companies in terms of betting.
We also have to remind them that these are Government entities; they have rules and regulations governing them, there are structures, you need to work within the structures, that is the reason why we are Members of Parliament we are ready to support you if you have good ideas, one of the Members said, when he got the nomination letter, he went to various places to find out how is he going to discharge his duties as Member of the Board of Directors, that was good; but now you have done it alone, you have to work in collaboration with other Members of the Board.
For the seed and the fertilizer, you can only get a better yield if you have a very good seed and talking about fertilizers sometimes in the 80s or even 90s, people brought in fertilizers that are not good and sometimes, I am not an agriculturist, but we used to hear people talking about MPK, Potassium, phosphorus, I do not know those names the professionals can tell us about.
We have formed institutions not because we want to create jobs, nor because we want service delivery; we want to involve the farmers to know what they are doing, we need education for our farmers, so if you are ensuring that they have fertilizers, ensure that it is the right fertilizer used at the right time.
You cannot bring fertilizer if you are going to use them in April or August you want to use them in November you have to know the soil time all of these things we need education to our farmers, if you do not give 64 them better education, there is no need.
Mr Speaker, having to form a Fertilizer Board Authority is for us to have an entity to be directing our agricultural aspect and activities that we are going to take on board, because agriculture is forming the backbone of our Governance now; we want to feed ourselves.

For seeds; these two entities I look at them as one if you really want to get a better job.
You see sometimes even when you want to give the contractors, Professor, I know you are an academics, but you are a much disciplined man too; I have heard about you.

Do not compromise your stands, please do not compromise you standards, this is a very dangerous entity.

Sometimes when they give out contracts, you will see people go through very beautiful procurement processes, but at the time for supply, the contractors will start to bring in poor seeds.
There comes in the Professor and his team; you now do the analysis of those seeds if really they are viable.

So forming all of these institutions, through an Act of Parliament and approvals, we want you to help us to succeed; we want you to do service delivery for us.

If you say you are not going to look to that wherein to dot the I’s and cross the T’s we are not going to succeed as a unit.
So we beg you please, in the discharge of your duties in the various capacities and responsibilities given to you; you see much has been said about you so we are expecting you to perform.

Likewise on the sporting entity, I will call Mr David Sengo Woobay “Professor”, because I have never heard him failed anywhere; everywhere you go his name is written on every aspect of development.
You go to Moyamba District Council, he did his best; you go to the Sport Council, he did his best, so for me I do not want to say much about him; the record speaks for itself.

I just encourage you to bring in more ideas, I know by age, you have more age than my previous speaker but what I know you have a very strong will to deliver; the knowledge is always there to bring innovations.

Even when you were at the Council, Mr Woobay you brought in a lot of innovations.
People used to go to the Moyamba District Council to copy from the Council.

When we went there for Oversight we enjoyed a lot, not by him giving us anything, but the ideas, the things he put together to bring Moyamba District Council to where it is today.

65 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, talking about the involvement of women in positions of trust, I would like to say that is our commitment as a Government.
Thank you Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo for acknowledging that we want to have a lot of ladies in this Government, because they can deliver; and for better service delivery.

So it is nothing strange, we copy good things, do not worry about that.

So we are happy having them.

I do not have any doubt about Mrs Zainab Augusta Baby Milton who is a university lecturer and the other lady is a teacher; they are academically inclined and they are also going to deliver because they know what they are going to do.
We have placed them in specific areas where we think they can deliver.

So I wish you all the best and I pray that you will not be influenced because what you told us in the Committee is that you are determined to work.

But what I do not want you to carry on with when you get to your offices is for you to be influenced by bad leadership or whosoever you will meet in charge.

But ensure that you do the right thing, do not compromise standards.

You are all in this business to succeed.


Never mind you seeing our colleagues on the other side opposing us, but when it comes to matters of saying the truth, presenting good things for the good of Sierra Leone, we look at only one thing, whenever we are doing everything; from the Committee to the Plenary, what we see is to put Sierra Leone on a higher height.

So I crave your indulgence Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, for us to continue to support them during our Oversight functions.
I also say thanks to Honourable Members, for your contributions again and I believe we would not just leave them alone because no man is an island.

We will work with them assiduously for them to succeed.

Mr Speaker, I hope with the standards you like to maintain always, I believe you will always try to bring us to speed; you are the presiding officer.

We cannot play magic and we can only succeed as a unit if you look over us and tell us ‘look Honourable Members, I want to know about your Oversight’.
I will present our report as usual.

So I thank you very much for keeping up to standards and I believe that the nominees here today will follow what is expected of them and when they go back, they will do the needful.

Thank you very much, congratulations in advance and I hope and pray that we all here do better service to this nation.

Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


66 Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I move that the Eleventh Report of the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service on the Parliamentary Vetting of Presidential Nominees presented to this House be approved.

THE SPEAKER: Thank you.

Honourable Members, before I put the question, I want to take this opportunity to recognise a former Honourable Member of this House, who is in our midst presently; Honourable Alhasan Kamara [Applause].
[Question Proposed Put and Agreed to] [Motion on the Eleventh Report of the Second Session of the Committee on Appointments and the Public Service is adopted by the House and that the recommendations contained therein is approved] THE SPEAKER: Honourable Members, it is now my pleasant duty to add my own voice of congratulations to the nominees that you have just approved.
As we can all see, a good number of the nominees are retirees, who are being brought out of retirement to continue to serve their country.

It is very clear from your contributions that their record of excellent service and excellent performance in their previous vocations are still following all of them.

Success it seems, has indeed become their second name.

What it also shows, is that one is never too old to serve the nation and make an indelible mark.
By your utterances this afternoon, I am sure you would want me to convey to the nominees you have just approved our own best wishes for their success in their new assignments; they go with our blessings and indeed of course, they go also with the blessings of His Excellency, the President.

We have no doubt that with the level of service and experience that they have gained over the years; they would live up to our expectations and also the expectations of His Excellency the President.
We wish you the best of luck in your new assignments.

You may now take leave off us, thank you.

Honourable Members, I wish to bring to your attention that in our last Sitting you approved a Motion; a Motion that you approved in consonance with the provisions of Sub Section 5 of Section 119 of the Constitution, relating to the mandate given to Parliament to debate the report of the Auditor General.
Accordingly, that debate will 67 take place from the 11th to the 13th of February this year; three good days!

[Undertone] I cleared it with the Leader, yes.

Accordingly, what I proposed to do in those three days is to save the time of the Vote Controllers; we would not be asking all of them to be present all of the time.

Therefore, we have divided that debate into three allotted days.
The first allotted day will have its own segment to be debated and only the Vote Controllers for those MDAs would be required to be in attendance.

The same is true for the second day and for the third day.

The list of the MDAs concerned would be published, so that they will know in advance the Vote Controllers who are expected to be in attendance.
Let me finally repeat; whatever may have been the old practice of sending the Auditor General’s Report to the Public Account Committee [PAC] is not consistent with the language, nor the spirit of Section 195 of the Constitution.

Parliament will have two bites at the cherry.

The first bite would be in a Plenary, to debate the Report and to point out in that debate for the public interest and for the detailed consideration of the Public Account Committee [PAC], any matters arising from there.
When we would have completed that plenary debate, and the PAC would have also finished a detailed consideration of the Auditor General’s Report, their recommendations will come back to the Plenary of this House, for the House to decide what to do.

That is the procedure we are going to adopt, because as I said the last time, that is consistent with both the language and spirit of the relevant provisions of the Constitution.

ANNOUNCEMENTS HON.

CHERNOR M. BAH: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.


Mr Speaker, firstly I just want to add to your statement; you used the words “Spirit of the Constitution”.

None of us in this House can talk about the spirit other than yourself and Honourable Ibrahim B. Kargbo, because you were here when the 1991 Constitution was passed; so we would not challenge you on that.

But in any case, we would continue to do the right things and move forward.
But my main reason for standing this afternoon firstly, is to say thank you to colleagues and staff, including yourself Mr Speaker, for all the efforts that were made by you in trying to save the lives of the late Dickson Sesay, though 68 unfortunately; your efforts were not sufficient enough to keep him alive; you did your best but God has his own plan.
But I also want to specifically acknowledged the effort of the Honourable Mathew S. Nyuma; he has been very, very supportive and this is not the first time.

He has treated many of us as colleagues irrespective of the divide.

So I want to say a special thanks to him and that is a very good sign of leadership.

So I want to say thank you very much to all of you, I am sure the Administration will communicate the rest, because that is not within my purview.
But in brief, I am sure he will be laid to rest on Friday and the service will be held at a church just off Campbell Street; at Heddle Street.

But those details I am sure will be communicated by the Administration.

But again of similar importance, Mr Speaker, before the 2018 Elections, there was a lot of debate and talk on the ‘Two-Sim’ issue, and again that has continued to date.

Some of us Members of Parliament have been blamed but we are not cowards.
I want to encourage this House Mr Speaker, now that the President himself has pledged his support to look into the issue of the ‘Two-Sim,’ that this Parliament joins the trend, and the earlier we do the better.

If the Bill is going to come from the Executive, we are waiting, but I remember that there was a Privates Member Bill.

I know Members of Parliament will not like me but you do not need to like me; I am your friend already, so you keep that liking for some other day.
But Mr Speaker, the President has made a pronouncement and I have always maintained that whatever the President says is policy, whatever he says, should be looked into.

So Mr Speaker, through you and the Leadership of the House, I want to encourage all of us to take it from where the President has left and ensure that we do justice to it, I thank you very much.

THE SPEAKER: I want to believe this is our first Sitting in the New Year and you have just mentioned our bereavement.
I do not know when that occurred; you did not mention that.

HON.

CHERNOR M. BAH: I am very sorry Mr Speaker; I thought that you had been briefed by the Clerk as Head of the Administration, since the late man was an employee of this noble institution.

But be that as it may, I would say it occurred last Wednesday; 69 that was the very day I and Honourable Sidie M. Tunis returned from the Gambia.
We were on board the Sea Coach crossing over, when I was informed by the Honourable Aaron Koroma that he was admitted but I was not told when he was admitted.

Fortunately, I spoke to him one hour before his death, because after speaking to few people including Honourable Mathew S. Nyuma and some other colleagues to inform them that I am back and nothing else.
But since I had been informed of his illness, I had to call him to tell him that I will visit him the very afternoon between the hours of 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm but unfortunately one hour afterwards, I was again informed that he has passed away.

So it happened last Wednesday Sir, but I am sure as I said the Clerk will definitely give you the details.
THE SPEAKER: Very well, while we await those details, but with that information coming from you, I think it would be in place for me to invite all of us to rise and observe a minute silence in memory of the departed [Silence observed] May his soul rest in perfect peace.

Yes!

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

With regards the debating of the Auditor General’s Report, I realised you have stated three allotted days; starting from the 11th to the 13th February, 2020, I suppose.
But Members here will agree with me that on the said dates over a hundred of us will be in Bo City attending the IPU Workshop.

So if we are to have the relevant impact, [Undertone] I do not know, I have been invited, the Speaker is aware so more than a hundred of us will be in Bo and so I believe for that debate… [Interruption] THE SPEAKER: I am not so sure, I am not so sure!

I have not appended my signature to the relevant document which was placed on my desk only yesterday.
And I am not going to encourage a situation where people will literally force me to sign a document that I have not thoroughly read and digested.

Quite frankly, this document did not come unexpectedly; it must have come to us some time ago.

Why was I not given even 70 the draft form of the document for me to peruse?

Instead it was presented to me only yesterday with the request that I sign.

I am not a rubberstamped Speaker!

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Definitely Sir!


That been said Mr Speaker, I believe we all respect you as a Speaker and we respect you as a father but the fact is, I believe more than a hundred Honourable Members, have been invited and all of these Honourable Members, are more than willing to attend.
And you being our father and somebody who actually acts in the interest of the Honourable Members, I believe it was an oversight, but we would recommend that you please kindly approve this workshop and the debate can be allotted for some other dates Sir.

THE SPEAKER: I think apart from the written word that I am being asked to read and append my signature to, I would want to seek full and better disclosure, before I append my signature.

That has not been done!

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Noted Sir!


We would ensure that is done Sir.

THE SPEAKER: I am a little bit amazed that one hundred and eighteen Members are urging me; it goes to underscore the fact that, that document is a very special document.

Very well, in light of what you have said, we are going to take another look at the timing of the debate [Applause].
And therefore I withdraw the announcement I have just made to give me an opportunity to review the situation particularly, the timing that is involved.

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Thank you very much Sir.

On a sadder note Honourable Members; it displeases me to actually stand in this Well today to announce that the Laws we make every day in this Well [Interruption] THE SPEAKER: Well is only now that I am being advised about the IPU Meeting from the 10th to the 12th February, 2020, just now!
So you can understand my own predicament.

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Very sorry Sir!

We are sorry on behalf of the organisers.

71 THE SPEAKER: Is not just the apology; I expect to be properly advised.

HON.

QUINTIN SALIA-KONNEH: Definitely Sir!

Okay, on a sadder note, as I was saying, of recent I have recorded series of sexual penetration cases in my Constituency.
And just recently, in this same Well we enacted or reviewed the Law and the First Lady as well went across the country to actually talk to stakeholders, citizens and made several efforts to make sure stakeholders embrace the Law.
But on the contrary, what I see happening is that in my Constituency which is Constituency 007 in Kailahun District, it is but very, very sad to report that just this year, January we have recorded four sexual penetration cases of which all of the victims are children and one of them died in the event.

And the one that died was just about nine years going to ten; she had to go through internal bleeding until she died.

And we have three others under trial.


But the problem I am having is that some of these Laws we make are not being supported by the necessary structures.

Because, if we have enacted a Law of that nature; very strong Law and the supporting elements are not there to support it, then it undermines the whole process of having that Law in the first place.

With these cases, I think I have been working with the Family Support Unit [FSU] in my Constituency.
It is very sad to even note that not even a bicycle spokes, not to talk of a motor cycle or a vehicle is available at the police station in my Constituency.

So when once these things happen, the police officers look up to me to provide the necessary support in terms of providing vehicle, fuel transportation, medical and all of these things.

And so I believe, if we have made the Laws then the necessary structures must be there to support the full implementation of these Laws we have made.
Otherwise, we stand a chance of losing the credibility or powers that is contained in the Law.

What is happening now is a recipe to undermine the existence of that Law.

I think two or three weeks ago, I was in your Office Mr Speaker, explaining that even the person who was supposed to do autopsy, I had to personally give him some money for the Pathologist to go, do the autopsy.
And even with regards to taking the victims to hospital, I had to do all of those and I do not see that as a sustainable strategy and neither the way forward.

So with this, I believe this is a call to the Government to 72 actually provide all the necessities to the Police in terms of fuel and other logistics if these laws must be implemented to the fullest.

I believe the Police is one key segment that has to be involved strongly in terms of logistics and apart from that we have the legal part of it.
If you go to my Constituency, now the Magistrate is very much strong on this, that he has not got space for juvenile cases, and if you look at the distance between Kailahun and Bo, we only have a Juvenile Court in Bo District.

So it is again another challenge to transfer the cases from Kailahun to Bo; all of these are being undertaken by me which I believe is not a sustainable way of doing it.
So I believe as a Government, we need to start establishing Juvenile Courts across the country, if this law must hold.

We need to start encouraging the Judges, the Magistrate, to start accepting those cases at the local level, so that they start implementing that law in full, otherwise it will come to a time where nobody would want himself involved in any of these matters.
So on this note; I want to plead with the public and particularly the state officials, the Police and the First Lady to actually put more effort, because this is her project and we are here to support it; we have pledged to support it, the Paramount Chiefs have pledged to support it.

But again, if we are to leave situations as they are, I believe it will undermine the whole process.
So on that note, Honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I ask the First Lady to pay key attention to this, and I ask the Inspector General of Police to actually pay attention to providing logistics for the police officers and for the key stakeholders to be on board, so that we implement this law fully, I thank you [Applause].

THE SPEAKER: I thank the Honourable Member.

I think his appeal is sport on; it is really in place.
As a Parliament, we have done our bit; we have enacted the law; we have strengthened it, we have gone to the extent of putting in the Law a requirement for sentencing guidelines to be provided by the Chief Justice.

It is my understanding that, that too has been done.

So, in terms of separation of powers, we have done our own bit.

It is now with the Law Enforcement Agencies; the Police and the Court to do their own bit.
We are in sympathy with you and we are in solidarity with you in so far as what you have done to facilitate the process of ensuring, that the matter is treated 73 with the seriousness it deserves, and the Law enforcement agencies are invoked to carry out their own responsibilities.

HON.

DR KANDEH K. YUMKELLA: I stand on S.O 23; just a footnote to what he has said, there was a rape case in Moyamba; four women were able to evacuate that lady to be treated in Freetown.
One of the sad parts of the story is it was their money they used.

When they asked for the Ambulance, the Ambulance Driver said he will not take the lady, because his Ambulance is only for Pregnant Women.

So just to say that with some of these policies, there are certain bureaucratic constraints that kill our efforts, but that lady would not have ended up in Aberdeen if those four women had not put money together and send somebody to evacuate her from Bonthe.
Mr Speaker, having said that, I want to secondly concur to what Honourable Chernor Maju Bah said about the ‘Two-Sim’ issue; he and I had worked on the Bill which we will consult.

We want to support the President’s move, we would consult with State House as well, and we hope that we can give a formal notice of Motion for such a debate to take place.

We commend the President for being brave and confident to raise it, thank you very much.

HON.

IBRAHIM T. CONTEH: Thank you Mr Speaker.


I see as we get to close of business today, things are getting very interesting.

Now we are talking about a Bill to look at Section 76[a] and maybe 77[d].
But Mr Speaker, the Honourable Members that are working on the Bill in collaboration with State House and all other actors, I would want to crave that since you are working on the Constitutional Amendment, for us as Members of Parliament, we are on tenterhooks; but however, we want that Constitutional Amendment Bill, that you will be bringing to us [Undertone].

Thank you Mr Speaker, Honourable Members just crave my indulgence that I should wait to get your undivided attention.
THE SPEAKER: Now you have it?

HON.

IBRAHIM T. CONTEH: Thank you Sir.

I was saying, as we are winding down to the end of business for today, things are getting very interesting.

Now we start 74 discussion on introduction of a Bill to amend certain aspect of the Constitution, maybe principally Section 76[a] and interrelated Section 77[d].
For us as Members of Parliament, we want to crave their indulgence and draw their attention to the fact that since they are going to do a Constitutional Amendment, the House, is not indisposed to the document that they would bring, but let it also incorporate a revision of Section 77[k] [Applause], and let the document also incorporate a provision that would address the confusion in governance in Section 70, Paragraph [d] and [e], so that we can tie Presidential term limit or their tenure to the Appointment stated in these provisions, so that we would not have the issues of secured job positions, and their tenure is still in existence and they have been removed unconstitutionally.
So if those provisions are tied in, we would discuss the ‘Two-Sim Bill,’ thank you.

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: Mr Speaker, mine is a very short one.

I rise to communicate a concern from us the extreme backbenchers here.

We have noticed that you have been finding it very, very difficult to catch our eyes.

We have been making frantic effort to catch your eyes; I have stood on several occasions and I have not been privileged to have… [Interruption].

THE SPEAKER: Hold on!

Hold on!


Before you use the word “several”, today is our first Sitting day in the New Year.

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: Well, I am making reference to what obtained before we went on recess.

THE SPEAKER: Okay, why move forward?

Forget about the past!

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: Okay, while we do so Mr Speaker, we will like to pray.

THE SPEAKER: You see, you caught my eye now!

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: Because I have actually been praying.

THE SPEAKER: No, no!

You have not been praying.


It is because you stood up.

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: I did stand severally, today.

75 THE SPEAKER: Well no doubt, you are disadvantaged, because you are occupying the last role.

But I think I am not that short-sighted!

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: We want to pray that God strengthen your vision [laughter].

THE SPEAKER: I will see if I can relocate you.

HON.

PETER Y. KOROMA: Thank you!


It is a plethora of us here; almost all of us are suffering from this particular thing.

THE SPEAKER: Next time you want to catch my eye do this; [Speaker waves, followed by laughter].

HON.

DANIEL B. KOROMA: Thank you very much Mr Speaker.

I stand on S.O 23 and as you have made repeated reference to first Sitting of 2020, it is good that we start to implement certain new qualities in this Parliament.
Based on my past observations, I cannot blame the architects of this building, but with time, I think we need to copy best practice.

I have observed this over the years and I want to make it known today, that Parliament, as it is now, is not disabled friendly.

And based on best practice, we need to make Parliament disabled friendly.
This is a year of delivery, this is a year of performance and we want Parliament to start the ball rolling; Parliament needs to be disabled friendly, but if you check the architectural design of this building in and out, there is no friendliness to disability, and disability is not inability.

Disabled persons are also qualified to represent people in this Well.
So that is my humble submission Sir and I do not want another Speaker to do it; I want this one to go to your credit, that during your term as Speaker, you made Parliament disabled friendly; both outside and right in this Well, it is possible Sir, With your kind indulgence, thank you very much Sir.

THE SPEAKER: I take note of what you have said, thank you.

Thank you very much for your contributions.

Is there any other official announcement please?

HON.
HON.

KANDEH K. YUMKELLAH: Mr Speaker, we had given formal notice to the Clerks that the Economic Planning Committee should have a short meeting to decide when we will meet with the Honourable Minister and other relevant entities under the 76 hospices of the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development today.

We had said Committee Room One.

It will not be long, it is about thirty minutes; we need to do it to get the Minister’s schedule confirmed.

Thank you.
Thank you.

[The House rose at 4: 35 p.m., and was adjourned to Thursday, 13th February, 2020, at ADJOURNMENT 10:00 a.m.] 77