Tourism Department Gets New Secy
Tuesday 31st October 2006

The president of the republic, Dr. Alh. Yahya Jammeh, has appointed Ms. Angella Colley as the new Secretary of State for Tourism and Culture, according to reports monitored over GRTS yesterday. Ms. Colley replaces Mrs. Susan Waffa Ogoo who has since been vested with the portfolio of the Department of State for Trade, Industry and Employment.A 42-year-old trained and qualified teacher for 16 years, Ms. Colley hitherto served as Vice Principal at the Abuko Upper Basic School before her appointment.When contacted yesterday shortly after the announcement of her appointment, Ms. Colley thanked God and the president for her appointment. “It came to me as a surprise. I have never dreamt of it,” the elated Ms Colley said.

"This one thing that I cannot forgive is hypocrisy and pretending. If you are sincere and honest I will be a friend to you.  Even if you kill a person, tell me that you have killed a person, I will understand.  I am a human being.  One thing I will never forgive is for you to take me as a fool.  You do something that is wrong and when you are asked about it, you pretend that you have not done anything wrong, when the truth surfaces you are going home.  In fact from now, I will not be as tolerant as before.  You are not working for me, you are working for the country and for yourself and your children because you are being paid for it.  And also, don’t wait until Yahya Jammeh is around and you pretend to work.  This campaign has revealed a lot of things but what is important is let us be sincere."Said President as cabinet ministers were being sworn in at the state house this past friday. Belwo is the full text of Jammeh's statement. Please read on...

Lawyer Darboe Reacts to the High Court Ruling
Friday 27th October 2006

By Abba Gibba

In what could be seen as the UDP leader’s reaction to the recent dismissal by the High Court of a case he filed against the conduct of the 22nd September elections, Lawyer Ousainou Darboe yesterday convened a press conference to give his views on the issue. Below is an unedited version of Mr Darboe’s comments:The court knows that I do not have a counsel, so service should be on me. I received it and signed it but there was no personal service. Now the court never dealt with these applications. If it was dealing with this interlocutor’s application then we could say that a single judge of the Supreme Court was sitting to hear the matter. According to the ruling instead there was an application to have the matter struck out for lack of diligent prosecution and that was the application. The court was not in my view properly prosecuted because there was no previous application before it, which could warrant a single judge to sit on it. While GRTS and others are boasting about showing or trying to show that there was no diligent prosecution on my part, probably, what everything shows is that there was no diligent exercise of judicial discretion on the part of the presiding judge. One, he could not sit or be striking out a case and want a diligent prosecution when the case is not ready for hearing.