Statement by Halifa Sallah on July 22nd Anniversary
A decade plus five years ago, the days of the first Republic under Ex-President Jawara came to an abrupt end. If those who took over power thoroughly understood the meaning of a Republic and were truly committed to the fundamental principle of political science that no government can be democratic unless it derives its existence from the consent of the people, they would have called for a National Conference of leaders of all political parties, civil society segments, religious groups, traditional leaders and other opinion leaders to discuss on the way forward to the Second Republic. This should have been followed by the discussion on how to put the best possible constitution and electoral system in place in order to ensure free and fair election devoid of the advantages of incumbency, the establishment of a term limit as it is the case in Ghana to prevent self perpetuating rule and the creation of a balance in the powers of the opposition and
governing party to ensure that all institutions such as the Legislature, The Judiciary, Independent Electoral Commission, the Media and other oversight and civil society organisations would function with independence and impartiality to promote the common good. This did not happen after the coup d’etat of 22 July 1994.
An Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) was established to run the Country from 1994 to 1997 when the Second Republic came into being. During the transition many provisions of the 1970 Republican Constitution were suspended, the ones saved were subjected under the supremacy of decrees. The Legislature was dissolved and the hands of the Judiciary tied. Civil society including the Media had to operate under the dictate of decrees. The state was completely under the grip of the AFPRC and no checks and balances existed.
The Second Republic was restored on 16 January 1997.Since the Constitution of the second Republic has made it categorically clear that Sovereignty resides in the People and that the authority of government must be derived from the consent of the people and that such authority must be exercised to promote the general interest one would have thought that the APRC would either be commemorating 24 th April when the first Republic came into being or 16 April when the Second Republic came into being. One would have thought that it would promote the culture of Republicanism. What is abundantly clear is that the APRC is committed to the promotion of the culture of coup d’etat. It has mobilized peopled to prepare an anthem to romanticize the coup. It has established monuments and gave support to musicians to keep the culture of the coup alive.
It is my conviction that the 21st Century is an epoch of the people. This is the time for
the people to realize that their bodies are the depositories of the sovereignty of Nations. This is no longer the era to build cults around personalities. It is the time to have faith in Democratic constitutions which enlarges fundamental rights and freedoms, make governments accountable and transparent and ensure that representatives are public trustees who have no other mandate but to utilize the authority derived from the people to enhance their liberty and prosperity.
In contrast to the promotion of the culture of the coup I would call on people to promote the culture of the Sovereignty of the people thriving in a sovereign republic which should guarantee them unfettered liberty and unrestrained prosperity. As some commemorate July 22nd , I would ask people to tell me whether they did take charge of their destiny on that day and could dictate what a government do on their behalf or remove it from office by their ballots. If the answer is not in the positive then July 22 nd could not be fittingly commemorated as liberation day for the Gambian People. I see it as a day when the work we were doing to raise the awareness of the people was interrupted and the process of ensuring the emergence of the sovereign Gambian who is immune to inducement and intimidation and who is the actual commander of his or her own destiny, retarded. This is the first point. Let me move to the Second point.
Those who were born in
1994 are now fifteen years old. What type of Gambia have they lived in for the past 15 years? If we have the same pace of development in the next 15 years would Gambia be a land of liberty and prosperity.
According to official statistics 59 percent of the population is living in abject poverty. I have just looked at the electricity bill of a middle income family and accessed what it needs to survive on a monthly basis. The bill to be paid amounts to 1200 dalasis The bag of rice bought is 900 dalasis.The gas bought for cooking is 700 dalasis. The telephone bill ismore than 400 dalasis. If one combines the expenditures mentioned so far it would amount to 3200 dalasis. It goes without saying that a breakfast of tea and butter without milk for a family of 8 amounts to 50 dalasis per day. This would amount to 1500 dalasis a month. If this is added to the sum of 3200 one would have an expenditure amounting to 4700 dalasis.This excludes expenditure on daily meals which cannot be less than 100 dalasis a day and 3000 a month, for a middle income family. This means that a middle income family would have to spend 7700 dalasis per month to live the life of a
low income family. Rent and other expenditures are not mentioned. The sum mentioned is far beyond the monthly income of Directors occupying grade 12 positions in the public service. These are among the highest offices in the country. This is why top civil servants are constantly hoping to travel abroad, attend a workshop or be attached to a project to augment their income.
In my view, development in a country is not measured by taking loans to build an airport or receiving grants from the EU to rehabilitate the Barra- Hamdillai road, on the contrary, it is based on the degree of expansion of the productive base of the economy to ensure balanced and proportionate level of development for each producer to earn income fit to ensure livelihood and further facilitate the general accessibility and affordability of social services to all in the form of infrastructure and utilities. Any honest analyst can easily see that hardship is increasing in the country. Many families are relying more and more on remittances, which have risen to 1800 Million dalasis per annum, to survive. After 15 years of AFPRC/APRC rule where are the public and private enterprises which are absorbing the growing number of young people who are coming out of our school system? Which institution is constantly measuring the employment and unemployment
figures? How many people need housing and how many have the ability to purchase houses? How many people live under roofs which are leaking or are waiting to be evicted because of inability to pay their rents? How many people can afford to depend on their official incomes to survive? This is the time to make honest reflection.
Let us look at the farming Community before going on to examine the conditions of the women and youth. The question now arises: What is the state of farming in the country after 30 years of AFPRC/APRC leadership?
This is a question of fundamental importance since agriculture is said to be one of the priorities of the government. Just before the President went on tour I had visitors from the provinces who came to the urban area in search of financial assistance to be able to pay for seed nuts which they had taken from their district chief on credit. The price per bag was approximately 700 dalasis. Those who took two bags had to pay back 1400 dalasis. Fertilizer was bought at 650 dalasis per bag. One could also imagine the cost of the other inputs for farming and what it needs to survive during the farming period. How many bags of rice does it take to feed an extended family from July to November? What ingredients do people put on the rice to make it nutritious? How many farmers can depend on farm income to pay credit for seed nuts and fertilizer, buy new seed nuts and fertilizer for the next farming season, buy bags of rice for 750-900 dalasis until
they harvest the new crop, contribute 50-100 dalasis daily to buy condiments to put on the rice? There is absolutely no doubt that middle income farmers would have to apply at least five bags of urea and five bags of compound fertilizer to improve the fertility of ever degrading farm land to guarantee reasonably good harvest. This would amount to over 6000 dalasis at today’s prices of fertilizer. I will not mention the other expenditures associated with day to day living or improving on housing, clothing, education and other standard of living.
What is the point?
My point is simple. Fifteen years after AFPRC/APRC rule the inputs that farmers need to cultivate the land are still beyond their means while the cost of living is getting higher and higher. Consequently, people in the farming sector are getting poorer and poorer. The avenue for a changed condition for many is to put together resources and send their children abroad in search of greener pastures so that their families could live on remittances. The President has offered a price to anyone who could document all the projects initiated. What is really needed is a documentation of the true state of the income of farmers and workers for the past 15 years in contrast to the cost of essential commodities and what is required to improve general living standards. This would confirm that upward mobility in income has been possible only for a few and is still a dream for the many.
Those of us who truly understood the state of agriculture when the coup occurred cannot fail to see with our naked eyes the demonstrated incapacity of the AFPRC/APRC administration to address the poverty of the farming community.
Let me cast a fleeting glance at the realities at the time of the coup and then assess, in brief, what obtains today.
At the time of the coup the institutions which should have led to the growth and development of agriculture had developed and declined. The farmers had primary cooperative societies which were initially linked to a cooperative union which had access to credit and international financial support to create an infrastructure for the purchasing of farm produce and for giving subsidies to reduce the price of farm inputs and consumer goods. An agricultural development bank was created to provide investment potential to improve farming and guarantee access to finances to purchase farm produce.
By the time of the coup the Agricultural Development bank had collapsed, the Gambia Produce Marketing Board which was responsible for groundnut marketing had been privatized, the Cooperative Union had gone through bankruptcy but managed to survive and was waiting for a new leash of life. The AFPRC came up with grandiose plans and promises. They seized GGC with the objective of reviving GPMB only to end having to settle a 11.4 Million dollar liability emanating from international arbitration. Now the GGC is in the hands of the Government and it is up for privatization. Could the APRC government assure the Gambian people that it will derive 11.4 Million dollars from its privatization or has earned as much from its operations for the past fifteen years? I will listen to the president’s speech for reply.
It is also abundantly clear that the cooperative union was initially given a new mandate to purchase and distribute essential commodities in competition with other commercial houses. Rice brought by some commercial houses were declared to be unfit for human consumption and dumped. Networks of retailers were established all over the country. The end result is that the cooperative union went through a second phase of bankruptcy under the AFPRC and collapsed like a house of cards.
Consequently, for over a decade the structures for groundnut marketing were in shambles. I will deal with the GAMCO fiasco when i launch AGENDA 2011 which aims to give concrete and convincing evidence to the Gambian people that we know what is wrong and how to right it.
It should therefore be abundantly clear that as the APRC commemorate the 15th anniversary of the coup the institutions which could have guaranteed farming inputs and consumer goods to farmers at affordable prices have all collapsed and the living conditions of farmers are not desirable.
It is also fashionable to claim that the coup gave rise to the liberation of the Gambian women. A ten year National policy for the advancement of women was launched in 1999. Ten years have elapsed. At the time of preparing the document we were informed that women comprise 50 per cent of the agricultural labour force and 70 per cent of the unskilled agricultural labour force.� According to the policy the women produce 99 per cent of upland rice. Horticultural production is predominantly a female activity and women livestock farmers raise and manage most of the ruminants and rural poultry. In fisheries, women form 80 percent of fish loaders 99 percent of the traditional fish processors, 50 per cent of the processors in the major coastal areas.�
The lesson is clear, the vast majority of women are engaged in farming and fish processing.
Managerial, professional, clerical and technical positions are very limited in the country. Hence there is little possibility of finding jobs which could pay the woman income sufficient to make the person economically self reliant. Farm income also does not make the woman economically self reliant. Most women depend on credit or remittances from children abroad to get status symbols such as jewelry, clothes and contribute to ceremonies only to live the life of beggars or debtors after such expenditure.
In 1995, it was estimated that 44 percent of the population were under 15 years. Today, they are between 14 and 29 years. If they are in the farm they lack access to production inputs at reasonable cost or markets to guarantee adequate income. If they are in urban settings they lack access to permanent employment or income for sustained existence. After 15 years poverty among the women is no different from that of the men. It is just worst for some women who become victims of sexual exploitation to enable them to live from hand to mouth or manifest a state of artificial prosperity by acquiring status symbols through credit or patronage for display in public.
The position of the Gambian youth is no different from the women. Each year moves them closer to graduation from parental care and enrolment into the army of the unemployed. Many young people in the rural areas are finding it difficult to even pay for the dowry required to engage wives. How could those people earn income to build houses and maintain normal homes from farm income?
Those in the urban area have to depend on employment to survive. Employment depends on the productive base which has been consolidated during the past fifteen years. One does not have to be a social scientist to understand that the productive base in the Gambia could be classified into five sectors, that is, Public, Private, Public/Private partnerships, Cooperative and informal/individual small scale enterprises.
My statement does not wish to display any pretence of comprehensiveness in assessment of all these sectors. AGENDA 2011 will carry out such a task. I simply wish to challenge the APRC to tell the Gambian people how many public, Joint private, public /private enterprises, cooperative enterprises and small scale informal enterprises have been created during these past fifteen years. How many youths have been given employment in those enterprises? How many of them could maintain a family and build a home from their income during the past 15 years? What has the APRC put in place which would enable the individual youth in the informal sector to have access to resources and market to earn a livelihood and maintain a home and middle income family?
If you conclude that the opportunities for employment and self -employment which could ensure earnings to sustain a family in relative prosperity are rare then you would have arrived at the same conclusion that I have drawn after casting a glance at the past fifteen years.
What then is my purpose for issuing this statement? The purpose is simple. I would like the Gambian people in particular and all concerned persons in general, to put fiction behind and focus on the facts embodying the realities of our country without any prejudices emanating from our political inclinations.
First and foremost, I would want each of us to ask ourselves whether the APRC and its leader had done something so exceptional to improve the living conditions of the Gambian people to warrant us to demand that they should rule the country for eternity.
My personal conclusion is that they have done nothing exceptional. They have just done the best they could. People like me strongly hold that there best is not good enough for the Gambian people. This statement is issued to enable the people to utilise the national holiday to engage in contemplation and reflection regarding the destiny of the country, the continent and the world.
The science of human development has given us five yardsticks to use as instruments to gauge the viability of any Government. These are the civil, political, economic, social and cultural yardsticks.
In terms of civil rights our sovereign existence under a sovereign Republic demands that we build a country where we are all equal under the law. It demands that we have leaders who are public trustees who are transparent and accountable to the people and are subject to restraint and control by state institutions, civil society segments and the sovereign people. In such a country the liberty and prosperity of the sovereign person is paramount and does receive the fullest protection of the law which are enforced by the institutions designed for the dispensation of Justice. In such a country freedom of expression is safeguarded as the foundation for ensuring public transparency and accountability. The Media is free to disseminate divergent views and dissenting opinions. Public servants are free from party loyalties and are accorded security of tenure regardless of which government assumes office. Fundamental rights and freedoms are recognised and
protected. The Legislature and Judiciary are protected from the arbitrary exercise of power by the executive and both are restricted from exercising arbitrary powers by being susceptible to judicial enquiry. In such a country, there would be no detention outside of the judicial process or disappearance of persons. No judge could be removed from office without an enquiry into allegation of misconduct or infirmity by a competent tribunal. No national assembly member could be removed by the executive and no Speaker or Deputy Speaker could be removed by anyone other than those National Assembly members who elected them.
In commemorating the culture of the coup Gambians should ask themselves what type of country they want to live under. The coup period certainly abolished the independence of the judiciary and created a system where absolute power was in the hands of a council which could not be removed by democratic means and where anyone could be
arrested and detained at will. Is that the type of civil environment we want to romanticize?
A sovereign Republic comes with political rights which empower each sovereign person to determine his or her manner of government. Representation is based on consent. This is made possible by establishing a free and fair voting system administered by an Independent Electoral Commission whose members can only be removed after judicial enquiry in case of allegation of infirmity or misconduct. Those elected are required to exercise their mandate to safeguard the liberty and prosperity of the public. The state resources and institutions are managed as the property of all irrespective of party affiliation. All parties would have access to the public media to put across their divergent policies and dissenting opinions. The culture of the coup does not promote such political rights. Such rights are only embodied in the culture of the Republic. Are you in
support of the political system of the coup period or the one demanded by the Reoublic?
In terms of social rights all sovereign persons have a right to their Religious beliefs, intellectual freedoms and philosophical conceptions. The languages and other heritages of diverse groups which could promote multi-cultural co- existence should be respected and protected by all state institutions and no one has a right to impose the dominance of one’s sect or beliefs on others. Furthermore, the state, families and communities at large are required to promote social security and welfare of all members of society. Could we fairly say that the culture of the coup is protective of such social rights?
Culture is the way of life of a people. This culture is promoted through arts. The sovereignty of the people should have been the foundation for the promotion of artistic expression. Now, the culture of the coup is being promoted as a foundation for artistic expression. Side by side with the poets, musicians, novelists and dramatists who promote the culture of the coup people should arise who will utilize their artistic expression to promote the culture of the sovereign Republic and the sovereign people. Such artist would not promote a personality cult of the years of the kings. They will promote the culture of an indomitable people who have the desire and determination to live as equals under a system which guarantees them liberty, dignity and prosperity.
Finally, economic rights to ownership of the means of production and to earn income sufficient enough to guarantee a respectable way of life come with the building of the productive base of an economy. The coup period did not provide a blue print for a public, private, public/private partnership, cooperative or informal sector method of economic development which is conducive to the growth of general prosperity. The economic models put on TV is how the President could cultivate big farms with the help of party supporters and state personnel or facilitate the establishment of transport networks, bakeries and butcheries. We are yet to see the blue print for ensuring that the Gambia becomes a middle income country. What is evident is that despite the claim that the Gambia will soon become a city State poverty is still very visible and cost recovery for electricity, water and other services are growing.
I therefore hope that as those who wish to commemorate the 15 year of the coup enjoy their celebration they will also take time to read this statement and reflect on the future of the country. Are we really on the road to liberty, dignity and prosperity for each sovereign Gambian in this sovereign Republic?
I now pause for your sincere reply.
To conclude allow me to say that during these past 15 years the sovereign Gambian people have cast their votes or remained apathetic because of political expediency. People generally knew what they were opposed to but did not care much about what they want and how to realise it. We must know what we are against and what we stand for in order to know who to support in Gambian politics. The moment for decision has come. We must now open our minds to all ideas in order to have all the views to be able to make informed choice.
We the people are the owners of power, the determinants of the leaders of nations and the architects of our own destiny. The battle of ideas has dawned. None of us could afford to be neutral. Each must take his or her place. What Gambia becomes after 2011 is entirely in each of our sovereign hands.
The insincere and the ignorant will always pay a price for their folly?
The future will tell and history will record or sovereign decision for posterity to pass its judgment on our generation.
Halifa Sallah
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