Posted by By Bekai Njie
The attorney general and minister of Justice has announced that the Cabinet reached a unanimous decision to take action on the recommendations of the Faraba Banta Commission report after “a very engaging discussion”.
The Justice minister made this announcements while speaking to State House media corps after an emergency Cabinet session convened by His Excellency President Adama Barrow earlier today. The session exclusively considered the Faraba Banta report that was submitted to the President in September.
Justice Minister Ba Tambadou said the report and the ‘white paper’ will be published within a maximum of two weeks. “The government has every intention of sharing the report together with the white paper that is currently being finalised following Cabinet discussions,” he said, maintaining that discussions at Cabinet have has gone very well, and very engaging.
He added: “Cabinet has taken a unanimous position on the recommendations of the report made. Those will be reflected in the white paper that is to be published together with the report.”
The Faraba Banta incident of the 18th of June 2018 sparked an outcry and His Excellency, President Adama Barrow acted swiftly to establish a Commission of Inquiry to probe the circumstances surrounding the incident. This inquiry was led by renowned human rights lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Daniel Joof.
The Commission submitted a report in one volume to the president on 17 September 2018. However, the Constitution provides that the president may publish a report together with a statement of actions or measures taken by government within six months.
“It has just been two months since the submission of the report to the president, and the government has already concluded its discussions on this report…The report is to be published within a maximum of two weeks,” Tambadou said.
He added that such a consultations process by President Adama Barrow shows a lot about the commitment of the government to the adherence of good governance, respect for the rule of law and democratic practice.
“The fact that we have to establish very quickly after the Faraba Banta incident, an independent and impartial commission of inquiry that was chaired by a very well-known human rights lawyer, shows the commitment and resolve of this government to change things in this country,” he posited.
He also pointed out that if there are any doubters about the resolve of the government to see through the recommendations and reports of other commissions currently ongoing, he will reassure them that “the government has every intention and commitment to act on recommendations that would be issued by each of them. The position of the Faraba Banta Commission will strongly support this point.