Committee wants right budget: Abel

By LORRAINE JIMAL
MEMBERS of the Parliamentary Committee on gender-based violence (GBV) have reminded the Government to allocate proper funding in the coming budget to address GBV.
Committee chairman Charles Abel told a media conference yesterday: “We have been calling for a proper budget to address GBV for a long time and we expect that this budget session the Government will make good on its promises to resource this critical work.
“We call on Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey to table a strong budget which actions the Government’s commitment to prioritising GBV.
“Government needs to back up the words of the national GBV strategy with real money.
“We know it will be a big budget this year, GBV cannot be left out of this year’s allocations.”
Abel said the Department for Community Development and Religion had made a major funding bid of K35 million over five years to set up a national GBV secretariat and to ensure GBV crisis response and prevention activities could be properly rolled out across the country.
“At the August parliamentary session, Parliament endorsed in principle that our parliamentary committee would be made permanent,” he said.
“A motion needs to be tabled in parliament urgently and driven through by the leader of Government business.
“I call on all of my fellow MPs to endorse that motion, to show that they are also committed to making sure that we, as parliamentarians, can oversee the work of Government to tackle GBV.”
Abel said the committee was set up last year with six members, in May, hearings started and the members had many questions that still need to be answered regarding why action is still so slow regarding GBV. These hearings have been designed to provide a proper amount of time for the members to examine to understand activities.