Dear Comrades and Party Sympathizers
Fellow Gambians both at home and abroad
As we prepare for the New Year 2024, we would like to take this opportunity to extend to you and your families our very warm greetings for a joyous New Year. We pray for our fallen comrades who are not around to share with us the joys of this festive season, but we will always remember them in our prayers.
For our party, the Year 2023 has been a particularly busy year, which witnessed our participation in the local government elections. We want to take this opportunity to thank our candidates and the Party members who actively participated in the campaigns.
The Party continues to pursue actively the programme of strengthening the party organs at the local and area levels to ensure improved organization and responsiveness to the challenges ahead. An important component of this strengthening process is training and capacity building for all the party structures but more specifically at the branch level. In this regard, we would like to refer to our participation in a training seminar, which took place in Accra (Ghana) on June 1 and 2. The seminar, Liberalism in Africa, discussed the value of liberal thoughts and ideas in the African context and helped expose some of our senior party cadres to the underlying philosophy of the party.
On external relations, GFA, as a full member of the African Liberal Network, has been working closely with other liberal parties in the promotion of the principles of democracy and human rights as well as the creation of conditions for citizens to improve their lives. Recently, our party participated in the Biennial Summit of the Network held in Dakar, Senegal on the 6th December 2023. The Summit assessed the challenges and opportunities facing the organisation and its members and formulated a forward-looking strategy to build on our strengths and address the challenges ahead. The party also participated in the RENEWPAC Summit in Dakar from December 3rd to 5th, which is an association of African and European Union liberal party members of Parliament to discuss the relation between the EU and the African liberal parties and define a collaborative framework that is more responsive to the present-day challenges.
For the coming year, 2024, the party will continue the important programme of restructuring and strengthening of the party organs at the different levels. We are confident that the party militants as well as the membership will continue the high level of commitment and hard work necessary to move the party to the next level. As we have always said, we will need to retain our support base, while progressively broadening it through effective recruitment effort on a continuing basis. At the same time, the party will continue the progressive enhancement of the political awareness of the general membership, and strengthen the skills and capacities of our cadre of party workers through training and capacity development.
In the wider national context, it is sad to note the Year 2023 has witnessed a further deterioration of the living conditions of our people. Access to food and other basic services has remained difficult because of their high costs. In addition to the high costs, there is the deplorable service delivery to the public, which is the consequence of poor public service management. It is sad to note that Gambian people continue to bear the high cost of an administration that has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness or inability to address effectively the daily needs and priorities of the Gambian people. Increasing salaries and other benefits of the executive, legislative and the judiciary in the present circumstances of unprecedented socioeconomic hardship is a reflection of the total disregard of the worsen conditions of the people whose welfare these institutions are supposed to promote. The ostentatious life style of the executive in the midst of pervasive poverty demonstrates a cruel mockery of the ordinary citizen.
We cannot conclude this message without referring to the issue of insecurity, which continues to be a major threat to the peace and stability of this country. The recent murder of two police officers reflects the new dimension of this insecurity. We extend our condolences to the families of these officers but we insist that this and other forms of prevalent violent crime are a serious indictment of the Government’s security policy.
The country is at a crossroads and it is up to the progressive forces to work together to usher in the new era that this nation so desperately deserves. In this respect our party will not be found wanting in the effort to bring about this much needed change.
Once again, we wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!
Long live The Gambia! Long live GFA!
DEWENATI!
