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Dear Editor,
On Thursday, November 27, the National Assembly deliberated on the National Assembly Salaries and Pensions (Amendment) Bill 2025, sponsored by Nominated Member Kebba Lang Fofana. Instead of engaging the substance of the bill, several lawmakers led by the Deputy Speaker Seedy Njie sitting in the Speaker’s Chair turned the session into an unwarranted and coordinated attack against the Member for Foñi Bintang, Bakary Badgie. They accused this young man of misinformation, dishonesty, and social-media sensationalism. In essence, they branded him a liar simply for stating facts.
The hostility began when NAM Badgie objected to the bill and used an illustrative analogy about how politicians use sweet words to secure self-serving benefits, just as a man might use sweet words “to get to the underwear of a woman.” Speaker Seedy Njie immediately condemned the analogy as unparliamentary.
Yet, moments later, when NAM Kebba Lang Fofana responded with his own analogy, this time directly labelling Badgie’s comments as a lie, quoting: “The best lie is a lie closest to the truth,” and adding, “in context, this lie is closest to the truth” the Speaker refused to find this unparliamentary. When Badgie raised a point of order that Fofana was insulting him, the Speaker dismissed it and allowed Fofana to continue.
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No decision could be more unjust, biased, and hostile than that ruling. It exposed the double standards applied by the Speaker Seedy Njie and the growing intolerance within the Assembly for dissenting voices especially those who challenge personal benefits.
The central falsehood perpetrated by NAMs was the claim that the bill was only about gratuity for deceased members. Throughout the debate, nearly every NAM who defended the bill insisted that its sole purpose was to allow the families of deceased Members to benefit from gratuity. This is demonstrably false.
A simple reading of the bill shows that gratuity for deceased members is only the third of three objectives and by far the smallest. What did the bill actually say? In his official “Objects and Reasons” of the bill, NAM Fofana explicitly states:
1. The bill repeals the current law on NAM’s emoluments and creates a new legislative framework for salaries, allowances, gratuities, and pensions.
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2. It provides for periodic reviews and prohibits altering the benefits of Members to their disadvantage during or after their tenure.
3. Only thereafter does the bill mention extending gratuity to new categories of people:
• Family of a member who dies mid-term
• A member who resigns or is recalled
• A person completing a residual term
Thus, the narrative that the bill is only about deceased members’ gratuities is an intentional misrepresentation. The bigger truth is that the bill legalizes years of illegal salary increments. Therefore, NAM Bakary Badgie was right: the first purpose of the bill is to retroactively legalize illegal salary increments enjoyed by NAMs since at least 2017.
This is what the existing law, the National Assembly Salaries and Pensions Act 1997 provides as annual salaries:
• Speaker – D86,400
• Deputy Speaker – D60,000
• Majority Leader – D60,000
• Minority Leader – D48,000
• NAMs – D48,000
The law provides only three allowances:
1. House rent (Speaker only)
2. Responsibility allowance (Speaker, Deputy, Majority & Minority Leaders only)
3. Constituency allowance (all except presiding officers)
That is all. Nothing more.
But what are NAMs actually receiving today? The 2025 bill states the salaries they are already receiving:
• Speaker – D1,200,000
• Deputy Speaker – D840,000
• Majority Leader – D702,684
• Minority Leader – D663,000
• Deputy Majority Leader – D624,000
• Deputy Minority Leader – D624,000
• Elected Members – D624,000
• Nominated Members – D624,000
These figures exclude seven additional allowances and a host of material benefits. None of these increments have any legal basis. The law never authorised them. Therefore, the increments are illegal. The benefits are illegal. The allowances are illegal. The current pensions and gratuities are illegal.
The Fofana Bill now seeks to legalise all these benefits so that they appear normal and legitimate when in fact they were never authorised. This was the truth NAM Badgie told and for which he was insulted and gagged.
Let’s look at the historical context: This same bill paired with the Judicial Officers Bill was first introduced in early 2024. But after public backlash, demonstrations, and widespread condemnation, both bills were withdrawn in July 2024. Yet NAMs have continually increased their own remuneration without parliamentary authority.
Rather than admit this and correct it transparently, they chose to cover it under the emotional claim of protecting families of deceased members. But the 2026 budget estimates confirm the real intent where NAM’s salaries are slated to rise by 50%.
Thus, the truth is this amendment bill is not about justice for deceased members. It is about consolidating and expanding NAMs’ own financial benefits. NAM Badgie simply exposed the truth. Therefore, the mob attack against Bakary Badgie was unjust and unpatriotic.
He was severely and unnecessarily subjected to repeated personal attacks, mischaracterisation of his statements, suppression through selective rulings by the Speaker and mockery and intimidation from fellow NAMs. This is neither democracy nor parliamentary decorum. It is institutional bullying and all because he raised a legitimate moral concern.
How can the National Assembly focus on inflating its own salaries and pensions while teachers, nurses, police officers, and other public servants work under unbearable conditions? Badgie stood alone but stood on principle. His intervention was not only valid, but it was also necessary as he defended the rule of law, transparency, fiscal responsibility, public interest, and equity for other public sector workers. For this, he was punished inside a chamber that ought to protect democratic debate.
For The Gambia, Our Homeland.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
