By Donstance Koroma
The Speaker of 6th Parliament of the Second Republic of Sierra Leone, Sengepor Thomas has bashed those tampering debatable bills about to be passed into law.
He said this during the Committee Stage of Industrial Relations Bill, Tuesday 28th May 2024 drew the attention of Members of Parliament that a group of people are in the habit of going into the government printing whenever critical Bills debated, and would utter and insert clauses to the benefit of few at the expense of the majority.
The Speaker called on the Chairman Legislative Committee and the clerks to rely on recording parliamentary sittings in order to verify clause by clause and line by line of bills after their first printing.
Hon. Daniel Koroma of the Opposition All People’s Congress (APC) described the actions of those groups of individuals doing “omission and addition” on billing documents as rendering the work of parliament useless.
He recommended a Special Committee to go through all printing copies after first printing.
Hon. Bassiru Silikie,Deputy Leader of Government Business oppose to the setting up of a Special Committee on the grounds that it will interfere with the work of the Legislative Committee.
“Just don’t rely on your table Clerks,” Hon. Silikie advised Clark’s office.
Hon. Ibrahim Tawah Conteh, Western Area disclosed that such alteration usually takes place during budget reading out and Finance Acts passing out into laws.
Justifying, Hon. Tawah Conteh’s contribution, Hon Abdul Karim Kamara of the opposition said it was agreed and enacted that the Ministry of Finance should not have a procurement department but after the final printing in one of the Finance Acts the clause that was expunged during the debate was inserted.
The Speaker requested to bring those laws forward to identify clauses altered.
He ordered the Deputy Speaker to put together a list of seven lawmakers that will be chaired by Hon.Daniel Koroma of the opposition to look into all laws before finally printing them.
Office of the Law Clerks, , Deputy Speaker, Hon Ibrahim Tawah Conteh and Deputy Leader of Government Business Hon.Bassiru Silikie reiterated that such people supposed to work with the Legislative Committee before the passing of the bills.
The Speaker ruled that, “The Law Office Clerks are lawyers but not MPs, so a small committee is needed.”