Increasing their democratic participation in nation building, the Speaker of Parliament, Honourable Abass Bundu, on Thursday 17th January 2019, informed Members of Parliament that the House would introduce Question Time, which was the practice decades ago. According to the Speaker, when he first came to Parliament in 1982 as MP, they used to have question time, right up until 1992 when the Military regime came into office. He disclosed they are introducing two sets of question time on which one will be every third Thursday of each month for the President to send a Senior Minister to represent him in answering to questions from MPs whiles the other one will be every week for MPs to question Ministers directly in Parliament. Giving guidelines to MPs on how to draft their questions, the Speaker referred them to Sections 19, 20, 21 and 22 of the Standing Orders, disclosing he will discuss the issue with the President for him to know it is within his prerogative to make sure there is a Minister to represent him in Parliament. He called on the MPs to make sure they prepare their questions in time and submit them to the office of the Clerk for proper processing. He disclosed that questions relating to issues that are in court or require information that are security sensitive will be put on hold. He however cautioned the MPs that they should not use the opportunity to embarrass people and the motive was to seek information that requires clarifications in the interest of the public and nation building.
AMK/19/1/19
By Alhaji Manika Kamara
Monday January 21, 2019.