By Madi Jorbateh
Our public institutions and services are under unprecedented threat. Yet lives depend on public institutions through the goods and services they deliver to citizens. It is these public goods and services that embody the protection and fulfillment of our rights as citizens of this country. Unfortunately, vital public institutions and services are being sold off on the false narrative that the government is not good at doing business. This is a farce meant to cover up corruption, inefficiency, and incompetence.
Not long ago, the production of national documents was given to a dubious foreign company, Semlex. After a few years, they made millions in the country and then left. It took the Government several months before it could continue to produce ID cards, driver’s licenses, and passports for several months.
Today, we are seeing yet again the same Government going to Ghana to hire a private company to produce our national documents. Was Semlex not supposed to ensure technology and skills transfer to the Immigration Department? What happened?
What is wrong with empowering the Immigration Department with the necessary technology, resources, and skills to carry out data collection, management, and production of national documents? Why is a Gambian company not identified to produce these documents? Why is this government hellbent on giving away our national institutions, assets, and services to foreign entities?
In Ghana, their national documents are printed by a Ghanaian private company, the Margins Group (https://marginsgroup.com/), which this Government is now hiring to do the same for The Gambia. Why not a Gambian company or the Immigration Department itself?
From 2017 to date, we are witnessing a blatant disposal of state assets and services at a level and speed never experienced before. The terms they use are concession, assets recycling, public-private partnership, privatisation, and the like. At the end of the day, what we see is a private company taking control of vital national assets and services for a number of decades
For example, a service that our Immigration Department and other security agencies could have provided very well has been given to Securiport at the airport.
While port operations are profitable, and the EU was ready to support the strengthening of the Banjul Port and even support the construction of the Banjul-Barra Bridge, the Government instead decided to sell the port to a foreign company under dubious circumstances, for 30 years.
The provision of ferry services is also handed over to another Turkish company when indeed the Gambia Ferry Services can and should do that job profitably and efficiently, if they abide by the law and professional ethics and standards.
Then you have our Senegambia Bridge which was already making millions of dalasis per month only to be sold to Africa50 for 25 years.
Currently, there are plans to sell off the airport, Gamcel, Gamtel, Nawec, GIA and many others. This means, with this trend, we will eventually have a country in the hands of foreign private businesses in charge of our vital national assets and services, hence our lives.
Why?
Politicians and their technocrats must stop selling our country to private companies. There is a reason the Government exists in which institutions are created to serve a purpose. There is a reason citizens pay tax and elect representatives.
The Gambia is not a private property. If elected politicians and their technocrats whom they appoint cannot run the Government and its institutions and deliver quality services, then they should resign and give way to those who can. But they must not sell the vital assets and services of the country and then call it concession, assets recycling, PPP, and the like.
To give away a strategic national asset to a foreign company for 25 years is irresponsible, unreasonable, and dangerous. It means selling the birthright of Gambians who are born today and for the next 25 years without their consent. Even those Gambians who are already born stand to lose for the next 25 years.
This culture of privatisation for a developing nation like ours is irresponsible and unrealistic. To compare the Gambia with a country like the UK in that regard is dishonest and myopic as the finance minister Seedy Keita and Minister of Information Ismaila Ceesay try to do. Just because the UK Government privatised Heathrow Airport does not mean the Gambia should also privatise Banjul International Airport. Just because Dakar port or Conakry port is privatised does not mean Banjul Port has to be also privatised.
Our government is created to have capacity in every sense of the word to perform efficiently in every sense of the world. This is why immense power, resources, immunities, and benefits are given to public institutions and officials. So, if they cannot perform despite this huge advantage, let them resign and not sell the country and harm its future.
For The Gambia, Our Homeland
