History has not been kind in its account of the events that follow every regime change. The Republic of the Gambia has been destroyed by its past of regimes that have been riddled with corruption linked to senior officials who have escaped prosecution.
It has lost many of its allies because it became known as a country of wicked political leaders who cannibalized the aspirational reality of the citizenry. The Gambia was further destroyed by corrupt politicians and their co-conspirators; the horrid iniquities they institutionalized during the First and Second Republican regimes degraded The Gambia, making it difficult to heal from corruptive afflictions. Those political leaders exasperated a farrago of distortions, misrepresentations, and outright thieves who were unprincipled showmen masquerading as genuine leaders who were exploiting a human tragedy for personal gain.
When you remove evil regimes and yet retain a nation’s character of evil, nothing changes. This government of Adama Barrow, which ran on an anti-corruption campaign, has not actually demolished the cancer of corruption infecting the powers of today.
According to the latest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2018, The Gambia has ascended in an annual corruption index, improving from a rank of 44th to 37th out of the continent’s 54 sub-Saharan countries for the first time in decades. “With a score of 37th, The Gambia improved seven points since last year. In the Gambia and Eritrea, political commitment combined with laws, institutions and implementation help with controlling corruption,” watchdog organization Transparency International said in a new report: Under President Adama Barrow’s Administration, The Gambia improved seven points to 37 on a 0-54 scale, the highest score it has registered in several years.
According to the Corruption Perceptions Index earlier reported by Transparency International, The Gambia averaged a corruption rate of 114.38 from 2003 until 2018, reaching an unprecedented high of 158 in 2008 and a record low of 77 in 2011 out of the 180 countries surveyed for the CPI rankings.
This high score comes at a time when The Gambia is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances, as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power. Conflict of interest is a new problem, but it has illuminated the glaring truth that Gambians have someone who is basically encouraging the norms of mega sleaze. And in The Gambia, the diagnosis of corruption is not good; there is a clear link between having a healthy democracy and successfully fighting public-sector corruption.
There is also a direct relationship between The Gambia’s favorable ranking and the partisanship, corruptibility, and malleability of the various institutions of government. Transparency International makes the unequivocal statement that its “analysis of the 2018 CPI demonstrates strong, democratic institutions are key to curbing corruption.” Now the current Transparency report has awarded a favorable 37 percent to The Gambia for 2018. What grading scale did they use? What methodology did they use? What has gone wrong or what went wrong with Transparency International? Seriously, what marking scheme did the examiners use?
What is corruption? It exists everywhere; when public funds are diverted to personal accounts; when a public officer unfairly gives jobs to relatives; when companies scheme to put their competitors out of business through corporate espionage and bribery; when a police officer says to a driver, “Silo Bulla Wetin you bring” demanding for a tip before letting the vehicle drive on.
Corruption under the idea of a “good guy surrounded by bad people” has gotten worse since Barrow took office on January 19, 2017. The Gambia’s future (her youthful population) has embraced the ethos of their current cellar-dwelling and irredeemably corrupt parents; unfortunately, this anecdote about the country’s youth and their perception of corruption, good governance, and amassing ill-gotten wealth gains is a reality.
Corruption chips away at democracy, creating a vicious cycle where corruption undermines democratic institutions and, in turn, weak institutions are less able to control corruption. The Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks 180 countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, found that the failure to control corruption is contributing to an overall crisis of democracy around the world.
Now, President Adama Barrow’s Gambia last week scored a favorable 37 percent for its efforts at killing corruption. That was the verdict of Transparency International, which appears to be a darling of Adama Barrow. In past years, it has been a vocal critic of previous regimes’ records of anti-corruption. What was the average score before Adama Barrow became president? More than 37 percent!
Corruption is the family house of all infractions. It includes nepotism, which you commit when you use your powers to give undue favors to your family members. It includes cronyism or tilting advantages unfairly in favor of your associates and friends. If you are guilty of cronyism, if you are guilty of nepotism, then you are guilty of corruption.
Of course, there is bribery; there is embezzlement; there is graft and there is influence peddling. Use of public power for private gain is the official definition of corruption. Does that not smell like nepotism, like cronyism, like clannishness and like favoritism? These are the rainbow of colors of the Adama Barrow government. Even when the Coalition 2016 partners, the navigators of the process that birthed the Adama Barrow government, spoke about these infractions, what defense did the government put forward? None. Instead, it gave a long list of so-called achievements, including freedom of expression and of speech, neither of which has translated to a speck of human development or improvement.
Corruption has only gotten worse under the Adama Barrow government according to Gambians. However, according to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, Adama Barrow and his government are not too bad: What else are Gambians supposed to do that they haven’t done? They have spent the past two years naming and shaming thieves. Didn’t Adama Barrow touch the untouchables and shamed the saintly crooks? Didn’t the government recover the diverted funds in local and foreign currencies and keep the bounty for the public good? Didn’t Adama Barrow’s government seize powerful generals, senior civil servants, and politicians and put them on trial for stealing millions to fund their greed? What has been done is more than anything that has ever been done in this land that flows with loose Dalasi and careless dollars. Now this Transparency report has awarded a favorable 37 percent to The Gambia for 2018. What went wrong?
In fact, what marking scheme and methodology did the Watchdog use? Does Barrow know that his government has been very transparent and obvious in its misbehavior? How did Gambians know that Adama Barrow has a multibillion Dalasi Mansion in his native village of Mankamang Kunda and main hospitals without a Gambian trained oncologist, no chemotherapy, no radiotherapy available in the country for cancer treatment to address citizens health needs and even without paracetamol in government health centers? Rodents are chasing big men out of government offices despite millions spent on maintenance contracts; snakes of the devil are swallowing millions; monkeys are invading farmhouses to mine and engage in secret recruitments of nephews, nieces, and children of mistresses and concubines to fill elite spaces; Simlex contracts for printing biometric documents are arranged without due process; there is the unrestrained reinstatement and promotion of associates caught with their pants down.
Corruption has become an endemic problem in The Gambia’s new political dispensation. It has also become a growing concern among foreign investors who would otherwise like to do business with The Gambia but are effectively locked out because of it. The persistent and flagrant violations of the open tender process, otherwise designed to encourage and promote competition among prospective bidders, is proving to be the bane of Adama Barrow’s administration. The acceptance of an anonymous donation of fifty-seven pickup trucks by members of the National Assembly, channeled through President Barrow, was a troubling sign of bribery of elected officials.
There are also questions surrounding the mysterious $752,544.42 bank transfer that was deposited in the First Lady’s foundation that carries her name – Fatoumata Barrow Foundation (FaBB). The amount was electronically transferred from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to the GTBank in Banjul via Hong Kong. Once this transfer took place, it became known to the public, leading to a barrage of questions from journalists, political commentators, and opposition party surrogates.
The revelations about this deposit must be viewed in connection with the D 10,000 monthly stipend offered to some members of the National Assembly—which some have alleged to have been a bribe to win their support in the president’s attempt to win the presidential nomination of his political party. The government committed all these acts openly and exhibited them for all to see. Transparency International saw them, too, and was not amused.
Corruption under the “good guy surrounded by bad people” excuse has gotten worse since Barrow took office in 2016. One can castigate, lambaste my characterization, or editorialize the 2018 Corruption Perception Index results, which reflect my disgust at the ineptness of the country’s leadership but also, increasingly, at persons who support that very ineptness. However, one must question the data that underpins the disgust reflected in my characterization. The conditions at Banjul’s main referral hospital is a direct reflection of the data, as is the sale for private gain of donated items, including medical supplies and equipment intended for public institutions.
President Adama Barrow, the Director of Public Prosecution, the Justice Department, and all their toadies can bray all they want – that this time they are ‘serious’ about fighting corruption – but until the man respects AND stops politics and patronage, the country’s supposedly co-equal and independent democratic institutions—i.e., its legislature and its judiciary—then his proclamations will remain just that: hollow and meaningless proclamations. Until Barrow stops using the country’s resources, institutions, and government apparatus like personal property responsible for keeping him in power, then the resultant quality of life will continue to reflect the same disputed CPI score that The Gambia has registered for the two years he has been in office.
Alaji, the indices cited above while making for good scholarly references, do not reflect the real situation that obtains on the ground in The Gambia.
Corruption in The Gambia under Barrow May be at it’s highest level and is still going unchecked.
The Gambia is one country where public servants in revenue collection positions offer a silly grin and a questioning gesture as to why one would want to pay the proper fees as per schedule into central revenue when the same payment/proceeds can be much lower where one “speaks their language”. A wink wink, nod nod culture is the order of the day. There’s little wonder then that clients seeking the notorious Tax Identification Number (TIN) will be ordered to pay anywhere between D250 to over a thousand dalasis but not provided with any proof of payment.
The question is how far up the pecking order does the illicit scheme go?
To make matters worse, revenue collection agents at all levels are moody, quarrelsome, uncouth and outright nasty!
Is this a tactic designed to preempt any pointed questions in the quest to rake in as much as possible for the OSUSU schemes in central government and public corporations?
So the GRA Director General is unaware of the practice?
Clearly this is common knowledge but nobody talks about it because it’s become the AARDO in The Gambia. Uuhhh!!
We can see and smell corruption and the negative impact in our society. The real question was posed on this forum a week ago. What is the DRIVER of corruption?
What is the root cause of corruption?
Let’s agree that people are not born corrupt. It is learned.
What makes leaders corrupt?
What makes citizens corrupt?
Why are some countries more corrupt than others?
Alagi knows the answers and understands the complex issues around corruption and its genesis. I wish he spent more time discussing the reasons why leaders and citizens become corrupt. He would have done the topic justice, but let me give you the straight talk version.
How do we battle corruption in The Gambia. We can’t.
We do not have the leadership, the will nor the tools to do it.
Because we see it but we do not understand it. Corruption that is.
We have not taken the time to ask.
Why?.
If I was a leader what will I do?
1. I will not be corrupt myself.
2. I will spend all my energy building a strong economy driven by agriculture and manufacturing.
3.I will wage a war on unemployment.
4. I will make sure that I build a robust social security network so that all Gambians will have a safety net.
If I am able to accomplish 2,3 and 4 that will be the end of Instituitionalised poverty in my country.
That will be a death sentence for corruption I hope
God Bless The Gambia.
Perhaps Alagi will write another piece taking a look at the causes of corruption and how we can stop it.
My take is a simple approach to a complex societal problem.
First we identify the DRIVER of corruption.
We come up with a solution dealing with the root cause of corruption.
1. We make good laws and policy that will strengthen our economy with emphasis on agriculture, manufacturing and job creation.
2. We improve wage. So that the average Gambia can have enough money for housing, food and healthcare.
3. We develop a system of social security that will provide social safety net for our citizens.
If we accomplish 1,2 and 3, Insttuitionased poverty will be eradicated. That is how you stop corruption.
That is if you have the kind of leader that is invested in real economic development and war on corruption.
God Bless The Gambia.
Nay, @Dr. Sarr. The drivers of corruption in the Gambia are greed, laziness and love of flashy lifestyles and never ending extravagant ceremonies that has gone beyond the limits of AARDO, to borrow @Andrew Pjalo.
In deed, when good laws and policies are made, they should be to strengthen every sector of the government but most importantly and on top of all, laws that would crunch and shrink out the volume of corruption, should be passed and never to be compromise by AARDOS that seem to be perfect mediums for the nation wrecking practice. People should have to learn to live lifestyles they can afford and, be honest and hard working in their walks of life. When some desperately argue that – ‘EVEN in the West, there is corruption’ I can’t help but laugh to myself. Isn’t it much much more better, public office holders resign when they are caught up in corruption scandals? I can bet my last ‘arch’ that in the Gambia, 95% of inmates are unemployed petty robbers, perhaps a few homicides convicts, a few particular serious offenders and ‘petty hand to mouth traders’ who come from the majority extremely poor backgrounds, while less than 5% of inmates may account for those convicted of economic crimes, though we can all agree I guess, our governments are 98.99% corrupt, as if corruption is a traditional ethic to hail. Those few who attempt to draw hard lines against the evil practice are cast as jealous, failures and unambitious or, are lured into the evil practice to end up culprits themselves. Corruption is a cankerous attitude that in my view, can’t be crush beaten by any other measures but impounding assets of culprits and sending them to the grill for very hard long years. The prison conditions however should improve: A detention facility should be clean. The passages and and cell floors tiled. Prison meals should improve both in quality and quantity. Good sanitation and sewage systems. Standard showers and toilets, clean beds, sports facilities (indoor/outdoor), laundries and access to vocational training etc. Historian, can say that prisons are colonial establishments though.
What if you make good laws and policies to strengthen the economy, improve the wages, and develop a system of social security but, ‘the peoples” lifestyles yet, are of those who love to spend what they don’t earn? I’m afraid but i think that will help people to becoming level 10 looters from a lower level 1. People need to learn to be hard workers and also learn to be people who spend and dream what they can afford and minimize lavish social events. Too many needs and meagre resources is a temptation for corruption so, laws must be hardened first of all, on economic crimes if we want to unlearn our arrogant and ignorant states of minds that’s driving the greed that’s driving the corruption. Passing severe anti corruption laws should be effective in helping citizens learn the culture of honesty, dedication, hard work and also expose their minds to the art of progressive thinking. Teach each other bitter lessons in corruption, then improve the wages, then provide the social security net. Otherwise; not unlearning our corrupt ‘AARDOS’, the predominantly 95% poor, continues to be poorer and the 5% big fishes get bigger. Nay, Dr. Sarr, UtG and Senior secondary students should be reading your stance about corruption but they should trash it. It is toxic.
In the ‘West’ of course there is corruption but equally so are prisons full of high profile inmates. They could be politicians, bankers, CEOs, directors, ministers, police officers and from all other sectors of civil service. If what I refer to as ‘the West’, are as corrupt as levels in the Gambia, they (the West) is doomed right now because such levels of corruption in their modernized systems will no doubt crumble their health, education, agricultural, trade and industrial infrastructures etc. The working class will become jobless and poorer. Crime rates will rocket and a state disaster would be declared. There is corruption in the West without a doubt especially when companies from there come to Africa to slap African leaders two times on both sides of their faces to make sure they are sleeping before they start reaping resources. Let’s bring to an end the embezzling of tax payer monies and state funds with merciless anti corruption laws. Let’s bring corruption amongst ourselves to an end and also bring to and end corruption offered to us by outside elements. The most common form corruption in the West is tax evasion, of course driven by greed, when rich citizens are not willing to pay back to the public good fractions of their riches. Tax evasion is punishable by asset seizure that can turn the life of the wealthy into a church mouse, not counting on the long difficult jail time that will be slapped on them at all cost.
No one in their right minds would defend corruption or make excuses for the corrupt, but I think a distinction has to be made between people whose greed for extravagant lifestyles turn them to corrupt practices to fund their lifestyles and those who are forced into corrupt practices as a necessary means to survival, due to earning incomes below the minimum required to barely survive.
The choice for such workers (and they are many in The Gambia) is either to engage in some form of corruption to earn extra money to support themselves and their family/ies or to simply suffer until next pay. I don’t think any conscientious person would see such suffering as an alternative for such people and their families, which may include children.
Corruption is a cancer that needs to be fought and defeated, and if that’s going to be achieved through tough laws and punishment, then so be it, but I doubt very much if tough laws and sentences are going to deter people whose very survival may depend on the extra income they make through some form of corruption. That’s just the reality for many workers at the bottom end of the pay scale.
You have talked about potatoes somewhere and I wanted to ask you this question: why do you think The Gambia is spending a fortune (in much needed foreign exchange: monies that could go into the pockets of our farmers) to import potatoes from abroad, Europe mainly, thus transferring those funds into the pockets of European Farmers? Is it because Gambian Farmers are lazy or can’t grow potatoes?
The answer will probably indicate why corruption, problematic as it may be, is NOT the main reason for our poverty, though this is what the architects of this system and their agents, would want us to believe.
Bax I can help to shed light on your question to Jack on growing potatoes in The Gambia.
The Irish potato is one crop that couldn’t be grown in The Gambia as a rainy season crop like sweet potatoes because the crop is a cool season crop that requires a temperature differential between daytime and nighttime temperatures to form tubers. So embarking on a rainy season Irish potato crop will yield nice above ground foliage (leaves) but no tubers underground. A fool’s errand it will be.
The crop can be grown in The Gambia but only between December and April when we experience low nighttime temperatures. Even there, the crop must be irrigated but yields will not be as high as where the crop was grown in a temperate climate.
So when it comes to Irish potato production, the farmers aren’t lazy as the undertaking may be dicy and requires a thorough knowledge and understanding of the cropping and marketing techniques.
I may add that here’s a crop with the potential to provide alternative sources of income for most of the corrupt and lazy agricultural and other top officials that keep sitting on their hands after work but are keen on begging for Koparri Ndawal and scheming endlessly, in the guise of research and development, to defraud Gambian taxpayers. Maneh, Yonnay Ma Dollars/Euro Yi. Afferr Yi Danu Jaffeh Tang Yii. Darra Dohhul Fii. Maneh, Amna Kuye Jaye Land Deh!
Bax, it’s not that you present an excuse for corruption but there’s just no reason for this canker to fester in Gambian society as has been and STILL is!
Until government shows the will and commitment to prosecute and send corrupt officials at the top to jail, the prevalent “AARDA” of TAPALEH for TEIKKI and SUUNYAARO for FIRINGO will not go anywhere soon enough.
But hey, it’s the Gambian where almost everyone including our own kith and kin are tainted.
The digression from the topic at hand was meant to elucidate Bax’s comment. But again Bourne, I couldn’t help myself. Smile.
Andrew, if our preferred choice of potatoes is the Irish Potatoes, there is no reason why we can’t have a national program that produce healthy Irish Potatoes to supply the domestic market.
After all, the Irish Potato is not native to Ireland and was only introduced there around 1589.
It is thought that potato was first domesticated by people in present day Peru, and it’s not a cold country.
We aren’t producing potatoes or most of our needs because we depend on handouts that will dry up, if we take any actions that would be deemed to be against the interest of our benefactors.
So, we just must continue to remain a market for products from advanced economies, the role that our economies were set up to play from day one. That is also the reason why talk of rice self/food sufficiency is just hot air. We have been talking about food self sufficiency for close to half century. Surely, a country with vast water and agricultural resources doesn’t need that much time to grow enough food.
We will NEVER be able to do it until are stand up for ourselves, and that requires a selfless leadership that is prepared to forgo the niceties of high office and a citizenry ready to endure the hardships that go with taking ones country back.
Because make no mistake, such attempts are always followed by sanctions, demonisations and regime change plots. They never fail because they can’t afford a “stray one” from the system getting successful and showing that there is an alternative.
Bax, I think the matter of priority here is having the required agro tech. know how to grow ‘Peruvian’ potatoes in the Gambia. The point of focus of any research of the agric. research centers of the Gambia should be – how Peruvian potatoes genetically adjusted to the extremely cold Irish climate. If they can’t find answers, they should simply put Peruvian Irish potatoes to task on Gambian soil. First let’s make water sufficient and accessible every where. Only the taxpayers money can do it the Gambia in less than a decade if we curb the the cultures and traditions of corruption! Let people take benefit of the abundance of water and grow enough food to be food self sufficient so that they can think straight and wise with their independent minds instead of trying to have two million heads undergo brain transplant. A hundred thousand tonnes of properly trademarked rice cannot go rotten in the Gambia. It can be sold as far as Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Rwanda, DR Congo, or some of it sent to places like Somalia as humanitarian aid.
If there were peanut butter and oil producing, and other peanut products factories, do you think there is still going to be a lack of market? What about bee keeping? We can’t give vocational training to ambitious young farmers in bee keeping whereby they may sell their own marks of honeys that meets continental standards … I think the subregion itself can be consumers of food products grown and processed around in the subregion and that’s a way to put value to the currency or currencies in the subregion. To me, making the aforesaid a reality does not require that much an almighty bang of a political ideological hammer on citizens’ heads but a reliable democratic process and a motivated people. Our imaginations of a dream Gambia may differ but that’s not to mean anyone should be astray, and by the way, even those we may deem as the – have gone astrays – have their rights equally, and that, they should be heard and issues surrounding their welfare be effectively addressed by the government. A specific ideology is not what we need to past through. We need just honesty and smart practicable ideas to make it through. We don’t need to find our way through another thorny road back to the starting point. Let’s give back to the people what’s theirs: good roads, good streets, good sanitation systems, good health systems, education, diverse choice of farming opportunities, jobs and etc.
There is more hope for us when our technical institutes’ students start getting curious about how jet engines or construction cranes work. We expect our mechanic, electronic, hydraulic engineers, machine and electronic components designers to be able to come up with prototypes of construction and agro machinery within a decade. There is absolutely no one definite political theorem or doctrine in my view, that can be employed to bring about a meaningful democracy that affects peoples’ lives positively, but a fusion of ideas and approaches of various political camps, intellectuals and also opinion of the common citizen, with a clear aim to meet the basic needs of communities across the country, relying on a constitution as the fulcrum of the whole process – democracy. My post may sound repetitious and that’s a show of my inclination in the belief that, we could achieve all you’ve said without a specific worldview revolution that should have to be fought for another half century.
Thanks Andrew. Indeed, when I said ‘potatoes’, I was referring to ‘Irish’ and frankly speaking never new there is that much complication growing it in Gambia. Glad you know other crops that can be cash for farmers you ought not get into that now. But, isn’t it some of the reasons why a nation should rely on its university/universities? As you said, ‘it is the Gambia where almost everyone including our kith and kin are tainted.’ However, i think reminding each other how tainted we all are, and then to urge each other to unlearn our tainting ills cannot be retrogressive but a promise of hope for progress for generations to come. I’m not sure I even need to say much to Bax for now after your fruitful intervention.