By Madi Jobarteh
Two days ago, May 25 the UK Government began the formal nationalisation of British railways. They passed a law in 2024 to bring back their railway system from private hands into public ownership. They say they are taking this decision to give British citizens better service including cheaper fares and improving the rail infrastructure thereby bringing more efficiency.
Meanwhile, it is not that the private rail companies are doing bad. The British Government never said so. Rather they only focused on the best interest of the UK, which is already a highly advanced economy.
Here in impoverished Gambia, it is the opposite. We have rightly created SOEs to provide pertinent services to the people and at the same time generate revenue for the Government. It is a good idea especially for a young country with a weak economy with a limited and weak private sector.
Instead of the SOEs doing their job well, they have been rendered inefficient and unprofitable simply because of the lack of accountability. The institutions that should watch over the SOEs such as the State House, National Assembly and their boards also fail to perform their oversight functions effectively. In the final analysis, disregard of the law, corruption and mismanagement characterise the SOEs. But no one is ever held accountable for that.
In the face of this misconduct, the Government now comes around to say the SOEs are not viable because Government is not good in doing business. Who told them that?
So the solution they say is to sell our vital national infrastructure and assets under fanciful names as concession, assets recycling, privatisation and public-private partnership, etc. They defend this unjustified and irresponsible decision by quoting what Senegal or Guinea Bissau or some other country did. So what?
This morning, the infrastructure minister Ebrima Sillah was sitting at Coffee Time with Peter Gomez only to be making unfounded, contradictory and misleading claims only to justify their irresponsible decisions.
Anyone honest and sensible knows that SOEs are indeed and can be profitable and productive. There is nothing inherently wrong with Gamtel, Gamcel, GPA, GIA, GCAA, GNPC, etc to perform and make profit. The only wrong is that the Government just does not want them to be productive, profitable, transparent, and accountable.
If Alport could take over the Banjul port and within 60 days turn it around successfully without magic, why would the Gambia Ports Authority fail to deliver for decades? If Africell could be profitable why should Gamcel fail to be so?
Yet officials at GPA can steal D300M from that office with impunity!? Since 2019, neither the President nor the National Assembly or the IGP could ensure accountability for this massive corruption. Read the Auditor General’s reports to see the massive corruption and underperformance in the SOEs. Yet nothing happens other than paying themselves fat salaries, buying luxury vehicles, traveling the globe and allocating state lands to themselves.
Therefore, if SOEs fail, is it because the Government is not good in business or is it because the Government encourages corruption and mismanagement to rule over them? SOEs do not only fail to perform and become unprofitable but also they become bankrupt only for the Government to still bail them out with loans which these SOEs refuse to pay back. Yet nothing happens!
Minister Ebrima Sillah said they are now focusing on selling the airport after they had unnecessarily sold the Senegambia Bridge and the Banjul Port. What Sillah and the Barrow Government are doing is selling the future of this country. They must bear in mind that history will come to hold them accountable sooner or later. You cannot mortgage the very life and future of a people and go Scot free.
