By Ragan M. Conteh
The Parliament of Sierra Leone, with support from Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), has on Tuesday 2nd March, 2021 launched and unveiled “The Parliament of Sierra Leone Service Charter.”
In his submission, the Clerk of Parliament, Hon. Dr. Paran Umar Tarawally, said it is a significant milestone for the Parliament of Sierra Leone for being part of the OGP process.
Hon. Tarawallie continued that, out of the six goals set, the Parliament of Sierra Leone has achieved three and others are ongoing. He commended WFD and other development partners for supporting Parliament in its opening process.
“We have set ourselves an ambitious but exciting goal of incorporating cooperative governance practices into the culture of Parliament,” he said.
One critical commitment enhances this goal, which involves improving the quality and responsiveness of their services to their internal and external clients.
Dr. Tarawally furthered that Parliament is aggressively working towards improving their services, but they cannot keep this in the dark without making sincere commitment and bringing it to their attention.
He revealed that it is against this background that they have decided to develop a Service Charter to make a clear statement of intent of putting their clients at the forefront of their operations.
The Clerk pointed out that they are serving a diverse group of clients from Members of Parliament to their staff, ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) to partners and the media to the general public.
According to the Clerk, they promised to give the people the best of service with the required professional standards and therefore appealed to all to feel free to let them know if their services do not meet their expectation for they are in this together.
The Parliament of Sierra Leone’s Service Charter is a reflection of the institution’s commitment to assist and make available the best Parliamentary Service Standards to citizens of Sierra Leone.
Giving a background submission of the Service Charter, Deputy Director of Research, Mr. Gilbert N’hbay, said WFD and Parliament developed and validated the Charter with the aim of making Parliament open and accessible to the people of Sierra Leone.
In his submission, the Country Representative of Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Rev. Alusine Diamond Suma, said they are supporting Parliament in the areas of transparency, accountability and openness; adding that the Parliament of Sierra Leone, since its inception into the OGP space, has been very active in achieving its milestones by publication of its annual reports, hosting an open day interaction between citizens and Parliament and the launch of the Parliament’s Mobile App.
The Chairman National Commission for Civic Education and Development, Mr. Kalilu Totangi, praised the Parliament of Sierra Leone for embracing transparency, accountability, and accessibility to the people.
In his keynote address, the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Dr. Abass Chernor Bundu, said the vision and mission of Parliament in the Charter have clearly spelt out its roles and responsibilities in the development of the country. He added that Parliament is the supreme legislative authority in the country. He pledged that Parliament would carry out these roles in the best interest of the nation; promising, “We will uphold and maintain what is in the Parliamentary Service Charter,” he averred.
The symbolic unveiling of the Charter was done at the entrance of Parliament Building by the Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Dr. Abass Chernor Bundu.