By Omar Bah
The Gambia For All party leader, Bakary B. Dabo, has said it is very necessary for cabinet and senior government officials to declare their assets when coming and leaving office in the interest of transparency and accountability.
Speaking in a Hot FM exclusive, the former vice president and finance minister argued that this is more necessary for top-level positions such as ministers and senior officials and not for junior workers.
Corruption
Mr Dabo opined that since corruption and wasteful style of running the state feed on each other, the GFA in tackling corruption will also be cutting largely on the wasteful style of government.
“I have been to many government ministries, not just at the level of ministers; it’s just too wasteful, so we will have to cut on that. Then corruption as a whole, which is a huge problem, has to be tackled within the rule of law. We are not going to jump on people and send them to the NIA just like that, but we would want to have a system that is very serious, from audit controls down to the judiciary,” he said.
Mr. Dabo added that a GFA government would insist on diligence to fight corruption mercilessly.
“There would be no sacred cows as we will put in laws that would clearly stipulate that if you steal, you have to go to prison, and I would want the courts to implement that,” he said.
PPP regime
Reacting to allegations that he is an old wine in a new bottle who served an old Jawara administration that did not do well to fight corruption, Dabo said: “Well, I think if you use that image, I would hold the belief that personally, that wine that you said was old wasn’t the bad wine. I think the allegations of corruption that led to the 1981 and 1994 incidents are allegations coming from a particular quarter that has an interest in saying so. It doesn’t make it true. I think there are many other Gambians, including non-Gambian observers, who would have told you what you referred to as old wine was fairly and reasonably a good quality wine in terms of governance and the management of resources.”
He said the PPP government also maintained a peaceful political atmosphere.
“So, I wouldn’t really lose sleep if people say, ‘Well, you belong to that old wine’ because it wasn’t a bad wine.”
Dabo said Gambians should be concerned about having a system that is essentially democratic and see to it that the state institutions follow that.
“This is where the independent media, professional organisations, and civil society come in to act as safeguards along the line to see to it that the democratic fundamentals that the country is committed to are practiced,” he said.
Commenting on whether GFA has a cabinet in waiting, BB Dabo responded: “We haven’t seen the need to have a cabinet in waiting, but what we have is a fairly solid understanding of the situation to some extent and relevant background so that if we were to be entrusted to govern, it wouldn’t be difficult to come together with a strong team that would carry it out because we will come with the will to bring about the necessary change.”
Asked whether his party has a basic understanding of the problems that await them to avoid the mistakes made by the coalition in 2016, Dabo said what happened in 2016 was a coalition of parties on the basis of a programme that had merit but is at the same time vague in many other aspects.
“I think a government of the Gambia For All will come up with much clearer and more defined programmes that can work, so I don’t think we would likely run into that kind of situation. They are different types of situations. Perhaps that is some of the drawbacks of a coalition setup because I don’t know how free the hands of Barrow were in selecting the people he put in cabinet in terms of being satisfied with their individual competence, suitability, and integrity,” he added.
