It was announced a few days ago that Africa50 has now taken over the operation of the Senegambia Bridge. This is the natural next step of the asset recycling deal it signed with the government in 2023. Given that this is a major event, it is important to re-visit this deal and understand why it generated so much controversy. It is also important for the Gambian people to realize that there were details about this deal that the Minister of Finance never revealed to the Gambian public.
From the moment of its announcement, numerous concerns have been raised about whether the deal was negotiated in a manner that is in the best interest of the country. While an asset recycling deal can be good for a country in principle, this particular one signed by our government had all the appearances of a badly negotiated and implemented deal.
Among the first glaring problems was that a basic feature of what constitutes an asset recycling deal was missing. Specifically, there was no mention of what specific infrastructure project the government had in store to invest the $100 million plus dividends that would be earned from this deal. The existence of another well-defined infrastructure project that would be financed out of the proceeds of the existing deal is a defining feature of asset recycling. Indeed, the word “recycling” in the term is present for this very reason. Without another infrastructure project identified well beforehand, the deal was simply asset mortgaging or sale. After all, the government forfeits all revenues from the bridge for the 15-year period of the deal.
Another fundamental problem with the deal was that there was no evidence that the government engaged in proper valuation of the bridge. In the lead up to the Africa50 deal, the government did not care to diligently track the actual toll revenue generated by the bridge given the huge fluctuations in toll revenues as a result of massive leakages. More damningly, traffic studies that would have helped in accounting for existing toll revenues and future projections to ensure proper valuation of the bridge did not take place. On the other hand, Africa50 hired a consultant that carried out a traffic assessment for them, reflecting proper due diligence on their part.
It turns out there were other details about the deal that commentators did not initially realise. Specifically, the government divulged to the IMF but not to the Gambian public that there was a key clause in the agreement, which stated that the country cannot build another infrastructure that would create a competition with the Senegambia Bridge. This clause was inserted so as to ensure that Africa50 can generate its targeted returns from the deal within the 15-year period. From Africa50’s perspective, that clause is highly beneficial.
However, it is highly unfortunate for a Gambian official to allow such a clause to be inserted in the agreement. This means that Africa50 can legally prevent the country from constructing an additional bridge across River Gambia for the next 15 years. Any government official that prioritises the long-term interest of the country should have seen this as a red flag. The limited number of bridges for traversing River Gambia has been one of the major infrastructural challenges for the country.
Allowing for clauses that are against the interest of the country has been a frequent occurrence in the agreements signed by the Adama Barrow regime. This government is so focused on short-term political gains that it is willing to hobble the country’s ability to address a major long-term infrastructural challenge. At no time did the government reveal the existence of this particular clause to the public despite the number of times the Minister of Finance (Mr. Seedy Keita) made public statements on the deal.
I would like to emphasize that the presence of the problematic clause is not indicative of any wrongdoing by Africa50. Indeed, the officers of Africa50 discharged their professional responsibility of negotiating a deal that it is not detrimental to the institution. In other words, they carried out their fiduciary duties. The officials who failed in their duty to perform are the Gambian officials.
The revelation about the problematic clause also demonstrated the level of misinformation that Ebrima Sillah, the Minister of Transport, Works and Infrastructure, engaged in earlier this year. After the Banjul-Barra ferry fiasco, Sillah repeatedly claimed that the government has plans to build the Barra-Banjul bridge and that a feasibility study is underway. Even if financing were available, the clause in the Africa50 deal would not allow the government to build the bridge in the next 15 years. After all, such a bridge would represent a significant competition to the Senegambia Bridge in terms of traffic, and therefore not permissible under the contract.
So, either Sillah was not aware of the details of the agreement or he deliberately misled the public on numerous occasions. Either way, it is an indictment of the level of unseriousness of high-level officials in this government. Because if Sillah’s was uninformed about the details of the agreement, it implies a serious disfunction at the highest level of the government. After all, how can the Ministry of Finance negotiate an agreement about our major infrastructure where the Minister of Transport, Works and Infrastructure is kept in the dark? If Sillah did know about that clause and still delivered false promises to the public about a bridge project that is a figment of his imagination, that action speaks for itself.
Another major problem with this agreement with Africa50 is that the Minister of Finance has engaged in inconsistent and contradictory statements on it. In making his budget statement to the National Assembly (NA) last year on the 2024 budget, Mr. Keita listed the first tranche from Africa50 as one of the revenue items. Furthermore, the government also indicated to the IMF mission that the tranche from Africa50 is part of the non-tax revenue for this year’s budget. Yet in a recent response to members of the National Assembly, Keita claimed that payments from Africa50 are “ring fenced” in a special account at the Central Bank, implying the proceeds are not being used to finance current expenditures. There is an obvious contradiction here, with serious implications for general truthfulness before the NA, as well as credibility of public finance figures.
What these recent revelations about the Africa50 deal illustrated is the importance to publicising commercial agreements or contracts that the government has entered into with other parties. These agreements should be public documents so that citizens can scrutinise them. Yet, the government has inappropriately hidden many contracts that the public has a right to know about. Unfortunately, these hidden contracts, more often than not, have been revealed to contain details that are not in the best interest of the nation.
