Gainako National Assembly Correspondant
The Gambia’s National Assembly adjourned its session to be held on 14th September 2021 to the following day’s session. The reason for the adjournment was due to a lack of at least one-half of all the members to be present in the chambers according to the National Assembly’s standing orders.
According to standing order 12: “The presence of at least one-half of all members shall be necessary before the commencement of a sitting. If there is not a quorum present when the speaker takes the chair at the appointed time, immediately after prayers the speaker shall direct members to be summoned by the ringing of their parties are in attendance. If after the expiration of two minutes, one-half of the members are not present the speaker shall defer commencement to a later time, not exceeding one hour, or the Assembly shall remain adjourned until the next sitting day.”
During the session, the Speaker utilised all the available measures provided the standing order by adjoining the session for two minutes and another one hour to allow time for the presence of members, but after the one hour exceeded, Parliament still failed to have one-half of the members in attendance.
This compelled the Speaker to adjourn the session to tomorrow 15th September 2021 for the continuation of the debate on the State of the Nation Address by the President.
It’s established that some of the members follow the President on his Constitutionally mandated Meet the People Dour 2021. It was also noted that some members are absent due to sickness while others were absent due to personal issues with permission.
Here are some of the photos of the empty seat of National Assembly members who failed to attend.