(JollofNews) – President Adama Barrow and his government must be ready to push the boundaries of transparency and accountability, even and especially with ourselves. We must be ready to embody and model the values that give meaning to and legitimize the important and necessary work of shining light on dark places, holding others to account.
I believe that public officers should publicly declare their assets. The Directorate of Asset Declaration should be empowered to verify the claims made on declaration forms to ensure that public officers do not over-declare their assets in anticipation of using public office to corruptly enrich themselves.
Asset Declarations of ministers and senior government officials are not meant to be a perfunctory exercise in box-ticking. They are primarily instruments of transparency and accountability, potentially powerful mechanisms of sunshine that could help, in very practical ways, to limit the incidence of corruption, one of the major challenges of our country.
However, the potency of this tool is gravely diminished, in my view, by the fact that asset declarations are made a secret affair, with the public, on behalf of whom people are elected or appointed to hold public office, not given a viable role in the verification of the assets declared and denied the fundamental right to know. This is another case of the “missing public” that needs fixing.
Therefore, as we rightly seek new beginnings for our country, we need to reinsert and reassert the public into this process of transparency and accountability by lifting the veil of secrecy from the declared assets of our public officers. This I believe: all public officers should be required to declare their assets publicly. Otherwise, the impact of the asset declaration exercise is successfully neutered.
I believe that President Barrow’s Executive Order authorizing his ministers to declare their assets is just not a rubber stamp there to hoodwink people because no one has access to the records and there is no mechanism for enforcement.
Universally accepted standards of Asset Declaration stipulate that the President and members of his cabinet disclose all assets, liabilities and business interests—as well as those of their spouses or any assets that are held on their behalf—upon election or appointment. Such a declaration is supposed to be made in writing to the Speaker of the National Assembly within three months of their election or appointment.
But despite the very unclear Executive Order of President Barrow and the importance that government officials be publicly accountable to the citizenry, it has proven very difficult to implement practically binding principles observed by those in high office. Indeed, it has become a thorny issue among politicians in The Gambia, as nobody wants to detail their (often unexplained) property or wealth.
To make matters worse, even when a senior public figure makes a declaration, it is extremely difficult for the media or any other interested parties in civil society to access the documents. If you read carefully, what the media publishes is just the fact that there has been a “declaration of assets,” not the actual contents of the declaration. Does the media have access to enough documents to scrutinize all the declared assets?
What mechanism for verification is put in place to ensure a true account of the inventory of assets declared? One viable mechanism is physical verification, which involves comparing the data on the forms with data held at various public agencies and private entities to check for authenticity, veracity and accuracy. The exercise will involve visiting physical sites for inspection and assessment of declared movable and immovable properties. Wherever necessary, professional experts will be used in the process at the expense of the Directorate.
Institutions declaring their assets include the Ministry of Local Government and Lands, Financial Institutions local and abroad and the Gambia Revenue Authority, among others. The declared assets of public officers would undergo the verification exercise to prove if indeed their forms were truthfully completed. Their initial declaration would be followed by an annual declaration update to be filed within thirty days after the start of each fiscal year.
Unsurprisingly, the lack of verification leads to widespread doubts about whether leaders really declare their assets. This also proves the entire point of declaring assets: to be more transparent and accountable and to help tackle corruption. In the current situation, the president, cabinet ministers and senior government officials know that if they have handed in a “declaration of assets,” no one can question their wealth. On top of this, there is no prescribed penalty for failure to declare assets! Talk about a toothless regulation.
Such a lack of transparency can lead to a sense of impunity and to allegations of corruption. Publicly declaring assets tackles these problems, giving citizens more faith in their elected and appointed representatives. Clearly, however, senior government figures in The Gambia are not worried about that. Or, rather: they are more worried about publicly declaring what they own. I wonder why? If it is legally accrued wealth, then why not declare it?
In other countries, the media might be able to use other routes to get around the Speaker’s non-disclosure by using an access-to-information law. Regrettably, we in The Gambia have the colonial Official Secret Law instead of legislation requiring access to information, such as a Freedom of Information law, leaving Gambian citizens in the dark on many critical issues.
The author is founder and former managing editor of The Independent, the Gambia’s only private newspaper before it was banned by the government in 2005. He was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, a 2007 Nieman fellow and is the author of Delayed Democracy: How Press Freedom Collapsed in Gambia published in 2013.
Six months into their banal, inept, corrupt, tribalistic and incompetent administration and still no declaration of assets! After shuttling/trekking around the world and The Gambia, earning fat per diem emoluments, stealing from the 50-million-dollar Chinese cash gift and other undeclared and obscure sources, they’ve got enough money/assets to declare, of course.
Why did it take so long to declare? The continued foot-dragging on the “assets’ declaration issue” is deliberate, a ploy to gain time to steal more money/assets.
Do we have to wait for yet more time before the actual declarations are made? In simple terms, to allow them time to amass more money from our public coffers and hide some assets under the sleeves. We don’t have to be cajoled by these corrupt people to know their ploys.
To say, I have a house, a car, land, X millions of Dalasis at Bank X, is as easy as answering questions at a press briefing. Because everything is set and intact to deliver. They know what they own and what they do not. Buying time only allows them to STEAL more, to add more, conceal more and tell LIES later. These THIEVES!
SO Babu… where is the declaration of your beloved Mansa Baboon Jammeh??? I remember your praisesinging in that days of enabling stealing and one man state coffers!!!
Jamarek,
President Jammeh didn’t promise to declare his assets. That’s no longer the point. Don’t espouse your bitty and slippery-mouthed government that made the promise to declare their assets. So why the foot-dragging after six wasteful moths in office? Who asked them to make a false promise only to retract after seeing the millions of dalasis they can easily have access to and steal? They are THIEVES. Stop defending these THIEVES on the pretext that President Jammeh was there before them. Are you condoning their ROBBERY?
The leopard never can change it’s spots: So what’s fresh ?
All this noise about change >> is too familiar.
Babu Soli, DwL, after they declare their assets, they must provide financial proof of how they could afford the assets, this is the new Gambia, the law and order Gambia.
Grim reaper,
When the air is clear of pollution we’ll all breathe well. A breath of relief. Let them do that as they PROMISED. Declare what they’ve got, how, when and from which sources.
Let them pay their arrears,taxes, leave heavy-burden government vehicles and estates and reduce the expenditures on our budget, by controlling the wasteful per diem travelling claims.
But remember, we have the same old cadre of the defunct PPP elements!
Bourne, Jollofnews 29th June 2017
Anything that does not quench your taste or satisfy your desire is delusive. That’s how I equally perceive an undemocratic, uncouthed element like Bourne who sees all opposition to be dunderheads. You are naive, Bourne. You are sissy, weak, dull. St Augustine’s has taught me the right path to self redemption and positive foresight. That’s personal and enough for me.
Isn’t it plausible to have a sitting Minister of Foreign Affairs who defrauded his country of THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of dalasis for tax evasion to continue? Isn’t it undemocratic, erratic and abusive to the people to maintain someboby in a Financial Ministerial position who was incarcerated for fraud? What Gambia are you claiming to build? A Gambia to revenge inspite of evidential criminal records of people in high positions? Come on!
Isn’t it annoying to observe the foot-dragging tactics of this administration to declare the assets they own, after six months in office? Though it is not prerogative, it’s now mandatory on them based on the earlier promise they made to our people. But will they stop at saying this is what I own without saying how it was/is acquired?
Look, foolish Bourne, don’t hate Babili Mansa to the extent of destroying your house which I presume is already infested with rats, bedbugs, mosquitoes and flies. You’ll soon flee!