{"id":4341,"date":"2025-03-21T18:37:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T18:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buzz7.info\/?p=4341"},"modified":"2025-03-21T18:37:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T18:37:15","slug":"hamat-sparks-uproar-in-national-assembly-calling-opposition-big-mouths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/?p=4341","title":{"rendered":"Hamat sparks uproar in National Assembly calling opposition \u2018big mouths\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_content tdi_98 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_4 td-post-content tagdiv-type\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_98\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p>Lands and local government minister, Hamat Bah, sparked controversy in the National Assembly, Wednesday, after he labelled the opposition as \u201cbig mouths\u201dwho abused the government for initiating Operation Clear The Roads.<\/p>\n<p>Bah made this characterisation in response to a statement by Serekunda lawmaker, Musa Cham, who argued that area and municipal councils are sabotaging the exercise by collecting fees which encourage the vendors to remain on the streets.<\/p>\n<p>Taking a cue, Minister Bah charged: \u201cWhen the government embarked on clearing the roads, there were opposition big mouths abusing and insulting, saying that we were destroying people\u2019s livelihoods\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A handful of lawmakers including Latrikunda\u2019s Yaya Sanyang, Central Baddibu\u2019s Sulayman Saho and Janjangbureh\u2019s Omar Jammeh curtly intervened.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpeaker, the minister is calling us big mouths. You need to put him to order and he should immediately withdraw and apologise,\u201d Sanyang demanded.<\/p>\n<p>Asked by the presiding Deputy Speaker Seedy Njie to clarify his statement, Minister Bah explained:\u201cI am referring to the opposition out there who are abusing the government for clearing the roads.\u201d The response further incensed the protesting lawmakers.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Speaker Njie cautioned the minister against making statements that may be termed as \u201cunparliamentary language\u201d. However, he neither requested the minister to apologise nor to withdraw his statement.<\/p>\n<p>Jammeh, Saho and Kiang West representative Lamin Ceesay raised standing orders to contest the speaker\u2019s ruling while demanding actions to be taken against the minister.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is wrong for the minister to call the opposition bigmouths. That is impolite of him to address us so,\u201d Saho charged<\/p>\n<p>Responding, the deputy speaker declared: \u201cThe minister has clarified that he is not referring to members of the parliament\u2026 If you don\u2019t allow decorum we cannot move. We will not allow ministers to misrepresent or insult members. We will also not allow members to insult ministers. Some of the words you [NAMs] use against members and the speaker are unparliamentary. Both members and ministers must behave. They must use parliamentary language.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still dissatisfied, Sanyang contended: \u201cSpeaker, what kind of ruling is this? The minister was referring to the opposition and some of the members in this parliament are in the opposition. So what kind of ruling is this? The minister should apologise and withdraw his statement. My parents are in the opposition so if he said he is referring to \u2018those opposition outside of parliament\u2019, then he is referring to my parents as well. Is that what the minister is telling us? Honourable Minister, you are a big mouth!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Speaker Njie then ruled: \u201cNow there is a tie. The match is over. It is one-one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source: The Standard Newspaper<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lands and local government minister, Hamat Bah, sparked controversy in the National Assembly, Wednesday, after he labelled the opposition as \u201cbig mouths\u201dwho abused the government for initiating Operation Clear The Roads. Bah made this characterisation in response to a statement by Serekunda lawmaker, Musa Cham, who argued that area and municipal councils are sabotaging the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4343,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4341\/revisions\/4343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buzz7.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}