Economic Defects of Bad Governance in Gambia
Economic Defects of Bad Governance in Gambia
Economic Defects of Bad Governance in Gambia

By Sarjo Bayang

Governance and economic livelihood relate in very critical ways. Efficient political leaders command the ability to deliver sound economic programmes where resources are adequately allocated for gainful results. On the reverse, inefficient political leaders fail to deliver for sustainable economic outcomes. The irony in Gambia is that our president and those holding for him depend on the economic system for their self gains while they lack commitment and willingness to allow the economy grow. In the absence of sound economic policies, the Gambia’s military regime resorts to compilation of colourful documents based on wild dreams that they know will never yield. The Vision 2020 which is a corrupted concept borrowed from established sources holds no grips for moving the Gambian economy forward. The economy is in deed moving, but backwards, and rapidly so.  It was president Jammeh himself who declared in one of his gutful utterances that Vision 2020 is not on track. What is more baffling is that while the Gambia’s economy is falling almost beyond revival, president Jammeh’s financial and material empire is growing like fat pig fed on rotten food. Yes, Jammeh is feeding on the Gambian economy, him growing, our economy draining to decline. 

Let Gambia’s Finance Ministry, Trade, Industry & Employment, and the Central Bank tell the nation what economic policies are put in place to put the Gambian economy on the road to recovery? If there are reasons why the Gambian economy is not moving what is it that our able technicians are doing to salvage the nation’s rapidly declining economy? Presentation of cooked figures to paint a fake picture before the eyes of IMF missions is not sustainable and must stop. It is no use the president regularly addressing the nation about economic prospects that bear no fruit. It has now become a defaming nature of Gambian president Yaya Jammeh to feed the nation with empty hopes when things get tougher day by day.

It was the Gambian president who swore before more than 1.5 million inhabitants of this tiny West African nation over the prospects of oil. He went on to swear that those who refuse to join him in the current mismanagement of the nation’s resources will not be allowed back to the country once offshore oil begins to flow. He further warned that lazy Gambians as he believes would not blame smart and hard working non Gambians in the era that Gambia’s oils of fantasy set the economic engine propelling. This is the most childish lullaby a funny father is able to send dull children to sleep. President Jammeh is one person in this world whose preaching and practice lay so critically conflicting that even the best of his media bodies could not fix up.

In the event that Gambia discovers oil, we still need competent persons to direct the utilisation of that oil as a gainful national resource. Only fools will be taken for a ride in believing that discovery of oil in Gambia during the era of economic mismanagement where president Jammeh owns everything, will ever bring prosperity to Gambians and Gambia as a nation. The glaring evidence before the eyes of the world relates to the crude oil from Nigeria which was kept secret in the name of state confidentiality. There is still no public account on the proceeds of this infamous crude oil from Nigeria which was meant for Gambian people but ended up in the deep pockets of president Jammeh. It is money from that source and other illicit sources from which president Jammeh continues to grow his financial and material empire since July 1994 when he seized power in a military coup.

Demonstrating his resolve to keep the Gambian economy down while he ascends to the zeniths of personal wealth, president Jammeh refuses to draw a barrier between what is national and what is personal. This is a serious defect by itself. Though we have established institutions in Gambia staffed by very competent persons, they are not just guided by policy. In a true sense, Gambia does not have a genuine economic or development policy. There is abundance of paper work and that is what authorities in Gambia present to development partners. In real fact, politics, the entire public administration and the economy operate by the blind dictates of a president with no prior experience or expertise of how institutional obligations and systems run like. For fear of losing their payroll positions, the best of Gambia’s competent technicians in administration and other specialised professions yield to the whims and caprice of a misguiding and dictatorial and incompetent president. Instead of facing the situation to defend principles and best practices, highly competent public office holders keep mute over serious errors and deliberate flaws of the president who dictates everyone what they do next.

In practice, what we see in Gambia is a situation where the military robbed entire state machinery for the mere desire to act as political leaders. Government buildings and the institutions they house stay where they have been before the July 1994 coup. The policies and procedures for recruitment and staff retention have undergone the most merciless and disfiguring surgery. What remains is a cosmetic structure engineered by a decadent system. There is a president without administrative ethics or processes. Because the international development network operates on prescribed relations and protocols, there is little that development partners can do to salvage Gambia’s declining economy. This is a thick mixture of facts that Gambians have to swallow.

Sadly, many in Gambia keep to the belief that one day international partners will come to the poor nation’s rescue. All what is certain is that Gambians are responsible for Gambia. No president is as powerful as the total force of enlightened citizenry. To prove that international partners are ready players for upkeep of diplomacy, they stay on even when a host regime changes. When the force of enlightened Gambian citizenry rejects president Jammeh and his unprincipled, unsystematic dispensation of governance and economic mismanagement, development partners still remain to renew diplomatic ties with Gambia. It is wrong for anyone to propagate that only president Jammeh is capable of sustaining development partnership. The current lack of sound economy policy and viable system of governance renders Gambia’s future is unbecoming and livelihood unsustainable.

Experts will tell you that the Gambian economy is broken to bits so serious that patching up the pieces will require no ordinary ability and commitment. That does not mean the pool of Gambian expert resources will not be able to put the pieces together again once the political and the economic environment prevail. The pieces that require proper fix basically relate to political, economic, social, technical, and legal environment. In the course of leaders extending control of the economy bad governance affects all sectors in very damaging proportions. The change that Gambia needs is both systemic and strategic for an enhanced economic livelihood.            

Posted on Monday, November 27, 2006 (Archive on Thursday, November 30, 2006)
Posted by PNMBAI  Contributed by PNMBAI
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