empty seats on the slpp corner in parliament
By Crispina Cummings
Parliamentarians of the opposition Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party Monday walked out of the well over the swearing in of the new members who were declared winners in constituencies 5 and 15 in Kailahun and Kenema.
The protest came just hours to the 2014 budget debate in parliament during which deliberations very critical policy issues and fiscal matters regarding the new minimum wage, increase in salary for the security sector, commitment to energy and water resources and for the first time a proposal to put Paramount Chiefs on government payroll.
Asked whether Paramount Chiefs should be on government payroll, the head of Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Ibrahim Tommy, said government paying Paramount Chiefs could compromise them.
“Chiefs are supposed to neutral and apolitical but they will tend to favour the ruling party under this kind of arrangement. I hope the constitutional review committee could be allowed to deal with such issues. I am opposed to Paramount Chief getting paid but they salaries should come from such sources as the chiefdom development funds. I am not sure whether the constitution or the 2009 Chieftaincy Act was clear on that,” he said.
Meanwhile, the boycott, triggered by the dissent over the two new All People’s Congress MPs, Regina Tiangay Marah of constituency 5 in Kailahun and Leonard Fofanah of constituency 15 in Kenema district, did not adversely affect the budget debate later in the day.
But constitutional lawyer and opposition SLPP MP, Dr. Bu-Buakie Jabbi, said they were completely opposed to “the so-called” swearing in of the MPs.
“We completely object to the court decision”, he said, adding that “some other political parties have also appealed to the good conscience of fairness, democracy and the rule of law”.
He said the walkout was to indicate in the strongest of terms their objection to the swearing in of the new MPs.
Emma Kowa, SLPP MP, said the country had a democratic government and therefore they expected that if people had voted democratically and elected who should govern them, the National Electoral Commission should respect that.
She insisted that NEC should not have conducted an election in the first place but should have held on till there was a verdict on the election instead of conducting the elections and pronouncing APC candidatesas the winners even though they did have the mandate of the people.
She complained that the electionsthat brought the two new MPs in parliament were not fair that was why they walked out of the well as a party to show their dissatisfaction and to let the world know that the people in those areas had decided they wanted SLPP MPs.
As to whether the people chose SLPP over APC or not, the ruling party’s deputy publicity secretary, Cornelius Devaux, said it was a miracle that their candidates ended up having both seats in the heartland of the opposition.
(C) Politico 03/12/13
