By Omar Bah
The United Democratic Party deputy foreign secretary and a former staff of the African Development Bank, Lamin Manneh, has called for an overhaul of The Gambia’s diplomatic missions.
Recently, government has come under intense criticism following the expulsion of three diplomatic staff at the Gambian Embassy in the US and the unceremonious recalling of staff from Cuba, Mauritania among others, prompting calls for government to revive and reimage its foreign policy and diplomacy.
Critics also accused President Barrow of turning Gambia’s diplomatic missions into a dumping ground to reward his political allies.
Last year, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the National Assembly that there is a number of policy proposals and blueprints to reform and enhance Gambia’s diplomatic and foreign service.
Speaking on the matter to The Standard, Mr Manneh claimed the destruction of the country’s foreign service started with Jammeh and realigned by former foreign minister Ousainu Darboe but it got back to the same state when Mr Darboe left cabinet.
“The embassies are staffed with incompetent people – people who have no business to be even near the diplomatic service. They should all be recalled to make room for career diplomatic staff to those missions.
You will have political appointments into embassies, which is normal but you give them time to be trained and get them supported by career diplomats so that their deficiencies are covered. So, if you appoint an ambassador who is a novice, get him/her a seasoned secretary or consul who would help him/her to perform effectively,” Manneh said.
He disclosed that during his time as foreign minister, Lawyer Darboe supervised the restoration of Gambia into the Commonwealth and also mended the country’s relations with EU and the non-align movements.
“Everything was back to normal but then came the removal of Mr Darboe and since then, we have been unable to get back on track. Now, the foreign service has been turned into a dumping ground – all the failed politicians and retired security officers are dumbed to the foreign service. This is why we are having all these problems around our embassies across the world,” he said.
According to him, government also needs to streamline embassies and stop opening embassies around the world that “are not needed and cannot be afforded.
“The government is already bankrupt and opening all these embassies and paying huge amounts in countries like Japan and Angola that are one of the most expensive countries in the world is not wise. Rather, we can have some of ambassadors accredited to these countries. We are spending D1.7 billion on our embassies every year and the country is not getting much in return. This is unsustainable,” he added.
Mr Manneh said we should ask ourselves what these ambassadors bring in return “apart from humiliation and embarrassment”.
He argued that with a properly structured foreign service, The Gambia should be able to gain significant returns in investment.
Foreign Policy
He said The Gambia should urgently develop a foreign policy that would align the country with its international commitments.
“When the former vice president Badara Joof said that the Gambia doesn’t have a foreign policy some people in government including President Barrow himself and Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara were angry with him but that is the reality. Our foreign policy since independence was determined by the assurance and insurance of our territorial integrity and our sovereignty as a state and also attracting foreign direct investment into the country,” he said.
Manneh added that under President Jawara the country had maintained that independence and stayed non-aligned.
“That allowed us to tap investment from both the West and the East. We manage to have good working relationship with China, Russia to a certain extent and some few other communist countries. We also had a very good relationship with the West because we are more of a liberal democracy and capitalist oriented, so that is what we were doing as a country. We also had a very strong foreign service which was filled with career diplomats who were trained on foreign service and went to diplomacy schools. That allowed us to have a good reputation in the international community and because of that strong diplomacy in the 1980s, President Jawara was selected to be a mediator during the Iran-Iraq war,” he stated.
He said some of these diplomats due to their experience will go on to work for UN agencies and the African Development Bank.
“It was in 1994 that the whole system started disintegrating after Jammeh started appointing his political allies into diplomatic missions, gradually removing career diplomats,” he said.
