In a recent National Assembly debate, members of the National Assembly expressed dismay over deplorable state of some government structures.
Contributing to the motion on the approval of a proportion on the budget estimate of Area Councils before the National Assembly on Wednesday, Hon. Abba Sanyang of Foni Kansala Constituency, said though an allocation for the maintenance of government buildings are made yearly, yet some structures are still in deplorable condition.
"We want to know what are the causes of all this because we cannot give out monies to people to maintain buildings only for it to be diverted somewhere else. This is not fair to the government and the tax payers," Hon. Sanyang said.
He called for proper supervision and monitoring on how these monies are being used, noting that this is the only way to avoid shortcomings.
For his part, Hon. Sidia Jatta of Wuli West constituency stated that there are many dilapidated government structures across the country that needs to be rehabilitated instead of hiring buildings at very expensive costs.
"What is happening is that government has structures that need rehabilitation but were left, and buildings hired at very exorbitant costs," he said.
According to him, there should be a serious policy for the government to rehabilitate all its structures to avoid unnecessary costs.
Responding to these concerns, Hon. Elizabeth Renner, the Speaker of the National Assembly said that it would be good and less expensive, if government can rehabilitate those already built structures and do away from unnecessary erection of new structures, just to be abandoned after a few years of usage.
She urged government to be mindful of where and how to go about building structures.
Other members namely Tombong Jatta, Momodou Lamin Sanneh, Borry Colley, Netty Baldeh and Bafaye Saidykhan, all raised similar concerns.
