COLUMN | The Commodification of Public Office By the Infamous 40 NAMs – Is the ‘Loan Scheme’ Even Lawful?
By Pa Louis Sambou A key objective behind the design and concept of republican governance is, to prevent a total autonomy of any of the three arms of government (the Legislature, the Executive or the Judiciary) from the other or the rest of the State edifice at the expense of the State and hence the existence of checks and balances as a countermeasure to tame any excesses. Historically, in our case that is, it is the Executive (the President and Cabinet) which has the infamous reputation of being the naughty partners out of the trio — usually transgressing, stretching and testing boundaries of acceptable conduct as well as allowances of their lawful authority, an adventure which the current administration hasn’t had the luxury to excel in thanks to unprecedented legislative scrutiny by this 5 th National Assembly. Whilst there’s little to fault in this 5 th Assembly’s exercise of its oversight functions in comparison to previous ones, the same cannot be said of its commitment