By Crispina Cummings
After a seven-day ultimatum by the majority leader in parliament, urging government ministries, departments and agencies to give reasons for failing to witness "important sessions" of the House, they MDAs have not budged.
Ibrahim Bundu, MP, and chairman of the committees on appointment and public service said that as at Monday 3 February only eight of the over 50 MDAs had filed in their letters to give explanations for not being part of the parliamentary sessions which started to discuss the presidential address and the budget speech on 29 January 2014.
The office of the clerk in parliament also confirmed the noncooperation of MDAs but would not elaborate on the matter.
While thanking the few who heeded their call in parliament, Bundu, who is also the House Majority Leader, said the MDAs who failed to respect the ultimatum should have asked that they be heard after the expiration of the deadline on solid grounds.
He said parliament would pursue those who reneged for as long as he remained the leader of the House. All pleas to get them to attend the sessions, he said, had fallen on deaf ears.
He entreated the ministry of labour to get registering machines that would be in government offices so that workers who did not go to work would not receive salaries for days they were absented.
Bundu also said that the private sector, NGOs and civil society organisations would be engaged so that all of them would be made to open their books and come out clean on tax obligations.
“Tax evasion must be discouraged and Sierra Leoneans should have their country at heart”, he said and warned people against turning the social media into social menace where they would say a lot of bad and harmful things about the country and scare people away.
(C) Politico 11/02/14
