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Momodou
Denmark
11749 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Oct 2007 : 16:19:14
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Interview with Halifa Sallah
On his engagements abroad; his books; the dalasi; the sale of public enterprises; the ECOWAS Court on Ebrima Manneh and other burning issues
Foroyaa: You left the Gambia since the 21st o September and were in Benin up to the 27TH. What for?
Halifa: I received the following invitation from the COUNCIL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH IN AFRICA and had to present two papers mainly to throw more light on the crucial question they raised for discussion, partly to restore my link with academia and partly to enhance the integrity of the People’s Centre for Social Science Research, Civic Awareness and Community Initiative.
Dear Hon. Halifa Sallah:
Greetings from CODESRIA! Kindly find attached an invitation to participate in an Advanced Research and Policy Dialogue on the subject of “The Politics of Succession in West Africa’s Democracies”. The proposed Dialogue is scheduled for 24-25 September in Cotonou, Benin Republic.
We would appreciate if you can confirm your availability to attend by sending back the attached registration form. We look forward to hearing from you.
Office of the Executive Secretary
Foroyaa: Who were the participants?
Halifa: The dialogue attracted University professors; Former Heads of transitional governments such as Colonel Elly Ould Vall of Mauritania; Chairpersons of National Conferences in Benin, Cote D’ Ivoire, Chairpersons of Constitutional Commissions; Chairpersons of Electoral Commissions, which presided over successful transitions; Jurists; Prominent academics involved in party politics, like Professor Batchilly of Senegal; heads of Unions like OATU and other Civil Society Segments such as Women Organisations and personnel from the UN system and ECOWAS.
Foroyaa: Can we get a copy of your presentations for publication?
Halifa: Unfortunately, this cannot be done until CODESRIA publishes them since they and the Open Society Initiative paid the air tickets, hotel bills and per diems. However, I can wet the appetite of the readers by allowing you to publish the introductions;
THE POLITICS OF SUCCESSION IN WEST AFRICA LAW, DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE CASE STUDY, THE GAMBIA
1. Introduction:
Statecraft in the 21st Century requires adherence to core principles and values of political, economic, social and cultural governance which are translated into juridical instruments to guarantee legitimacy to constituted authority and ensure the governability of a geo-political entity. Once these core principles and values are honoured with total disregard the legitimacy of constituted authority is imperiled and governability risked being the casualty.
Governance in the 21st century is therefore predicated upon the establishment of a regulatory environment as guards and fences for the exercise of executive, legislative and judicial authority and the discharge of public services for the common good. Such a democratic regulatory framework ensures governance by popular consent or conversely, facilitates change by popular consent, should the public good be subverted.
It is becoming increasingly evident that government by force yields change by force.
Suffice it to say, the ultimate aim of democratic political succession in West Africa is to guarantee assumption and vacation of political office by popular consent.
This paper interrogates the concept of democracy in order to put into proper perspective what is meant by “West Africa’s Democracies.” It argues that the nomenclature should not be taken at its face value but should be examined to determine the nature and characteristics of the democratic governance environment which is capable of engendering Democratic political succession on a permanent and sustainable basis. The paper gives a brief history of political succession in the Gambia, sheds light on the adequacy or inadequacy of the regulatory framework for a managed transition from military rule to the restoration of universal suffrage and constitutional rule.
It states the outcome; identifies the challenges of political succession in the country today and projects the lessons it offers to West Africa.
Foroyaa: That is the gist of the first paper, What about the second?
Halifa: The second is as follows:
The Opposition in West African Democracies
ROLE SIGNIFICANCE AND CHALLENGES
Halifa Sallah
1. Introduction:
In conventional political parlance opposition is equated with dissent. Dissent, however, connotes unequal power relations.
Is a democracy characterised by the tolerance of dissent or the negation of unequal power relation that creates dissidents? Are opposition parties’ dissident groups? Should there be unequal power relation between a party in government and parties in the opposition? Should party and State be equated or should there be delineation between the two? These are fundamental questions which require epistemological inquiry in order to identify the role and significance of the opposition under West African Democracies and map out the challenges and prospects for repositioning them on the contemporary political landscape of the continent. This paper interrogates the term dissident in juxtaposition to the term opposition. It contextualises the place of a party in government and the one in the opposition in relation to the State. It explores the fundamentals of a democratic society in relation to political parties. It weighs practice against fundamentals, reviews the challenges and projects the prospects for the opposition in evolving West African Democracies.
Foroyaa: You are currently in Europe; What for?
Halifa: THE TREATISE ON FOUNDING A FEDERATION OF AFRICAN REPUBLICS is ready. I should have launched it in the Gambia since the middle of September. Unfortunately my printers wanted to do a good job and the delay led to a mix up in my schedules. I had to leave to honour the invitation to Benin. I am also invited to deliver a paper at De Montfort University in the UK in November and I decided to come to Europe earlier to launch the book in Sweden; France, Germany and finally the UK in October and November.
Foroyaa: What is the topic of the Conference in the UK?
Halifa: The following letter explains the details
Europe and its Established & Emerging Immigrant Communities: Assimilation, Multiculturalism or Integration?
10th – 11th November 2007, Leicester, UK
Dear Halifa
Thank you for agreeing to speak at the forthcoming conference. So we have the correct contact details. Please could you complete the attached booking form and either e-mail it back, fax it back on 0116 257 7982 or send it in the post.
The conference is being run on a very tight budget. We do however have a small budget for contributors fees, travel and expenses. What would your fee be for this event?
We would very much like to feature short biographies of all our contributors. If you would like to have a biography included in the brochure, please e-mail it to me before 28th September 2007 of no more than 120 words. In addition, please check your abstracts carefully for accuracy.
Full details about the conference can be found on the conference website - www.dmu.ac.uk/euimmigrationconf.
Finally, thank you again for agreeing to speak at the conference. We look forward to personally welcoming you to De Montfort University in November 2007.
Kind Regards
Short Course and Conference Co-ordinator
De Montfort Expertise Ltd
De Montfort University
Innovation Centre
49 Oxford Street
Foroyaa: Can you give the introduction of your paper?
Halifa: The paper deals with the following:
Clash of Civilisations or Peaceful Co existence of Peoples
Rethinking the Challenges and Opportunities of Multiculturalism
Introduction:
The 21st century is a defining moment for Humanity. On one hand, Human beings are confronted with life and death challenges. On the other, they are accorded greater opportunities today, than ever before, to address the major problems facing the world, that is, poverty, impunity in state administration and unbridled hostility among peoples of diverse linguistic, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. The world is often described as a global village because of the growing ease in communication.
Conversely, neighbourhoods are being torn asunder because of poverty and growing hostilities among people of different backgrounds.
Casting a fleeting glance at everyday happenings tend to give the impression that, even though, human beings are mastering the science and Technology of communication they appear to be either incapable of mastering the art and science of their own social organisation or are unwilling to do so. History teaches that this incapacity or unwillingness to create a more inclusive World has resulted in two devastating world wars and multifarious civil wars which have wrecked the very fabric of many societies, rich and poor.
This gave birth to a post second world war architecture for world peace founded on six cardinal principles, that is, good neighbourliness; peaceful resolution of disputes; right to self determination; sovereign equality of peoples and states; respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and equality in dignity and worth of all human beings irrespective of gender.
These principles, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations are further buttressed by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is premised on the conception that humanity belongs to one race; each being born free and equal in dignity and rights and endowed with reason and conscience which should guarantee the existence of all in the spirit of brotherhood and good neighbourliness.
“However, these normative mental processes embodying reason and conscience or the hypothetical Super Ego, to couch it in Freudian parlance, which should presumably control the id and direct human behaviour everywhere; appears to be defied in the killing fields of Iraq, Darfur, Palestine, Somalia, Afghanistan, Serbia, Croatia, Apartheid South Africa, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and the streets of many countries where bombs kill neighbours with impunity and people of different appearances and cultures are labelled and regarded with suspicion, fear and contempt. The spirit of brotherhood and good neighbourliness appears to be honoured with disregard. Distrust and suspicion which is fuelling Xenophobia abound.”
The post world war architecture for peace presupposes the universalisation of freedom, Justice and development.
It envisages the transformation of the world into a universal home where all human beings can live in collective liberty, dignity and prosperity. The regulatory mechanisms characterised by statutory, institutional and normative measures, which should create the environment and inculcate in the minds of the people that there
should be no discrimination on the basis of religion, gender, place of origin, colour and physical appearance, are either not in existence or are disregarded because of prejudices invoked by one form of loyalty or the other. What has gone wrong in the creation of this universal space of freedom, justice and development? Have the governments negated their responsibilities? Have the people created other spaces of their own based on narrow nationalism and other ethnic, religious, linguistic, racial and ideological peculiarities, with guards and fences to restrict the loyalties of their members and keep others away? How have the statutory, institutional and normative measures adopted so far impacted on the peaceful co-existence of peoples? Where do we go from here? These questions require epistemological intervention to be addressed. This is the precise object of this paper.
Foroyaa: Now let us move to the Sales connected with GAMTEL and other public corporations, the Dalasi, The ECOWAS Court, the current political environment and the future of the country. How do you see the disposal or sale of shares connected with GAMTEL?
Halifa: I could never have imagined that a government can mislead the national assembly into believing the very opposite of the justification it had given for the current disposal of a percentage of shares in GAMTEL. It is claimed that this had to be done because GAMTEL had been poorly managed for 13years and the company had been driven to the verge of bankruptcy. My brother Kofi Harris the former member of Parliament for Banjul Central must now be telling every one that some of us in the previous National Assembly did predict the current outcome while the Secretaries of State tried to prove the contrary.
Foroyaa: What do you mean?
Halifa: As the then Minority leader in the National Assembly I had constantly challenged the figures we were being given and the APRC stalwarts, including the President, constantly claimed that I was just being negative. Now their own statements can be used as reference to indict them. Let me recall some of the facts to prove my point .In the budget speech of the Secretary of State for Finance in 2006 he claimed that GAMTEL recorded profit after tax amounting to 71.5million Dalasis in 2003; 120 million in 2004; 246 million for 2005; and 300 million for 2006. The cellular company GAMCEL also recorded profit after tax of 113.5 million. These are the sort of information we constantly received. Now the president is telling the nation that GAMTEL has been mismanaged for 13years. He should be asked why he told us in parliament in March 2006 that things were so developed that the Gambia will be the first developing country to provide telephone service to every village He indicated that GAMTEL had plans to implement a number of projects aimed at modernizing its network including the Air Span Project; He added that GAMCEL would expand coverage and increase capacity with the installation of additional cell sites.
The Secretary of State gave more fascinating figures regarding the volume of investment of GAMTEL and GAMCEL by indicating that the former had gross investment standing at 1.9 billion dalasis while the latter’s gross investment amounted to 601.5 million dalasis.
Hence if the authorities now claim that GAMTEL is driven to the verge of bankruptcy they must equally acknowledge that they have been misleading parliament and the Nation. A parliamentary inquiry therefore becomes necessary and urgent if we have a Parliament which befits a sovereign Republic.
Foroyaa: Are you saying that GAMTEL has been making profit and should not be sold?
Halifa: What I have always emphasized is the deficit in accountability of the APRC administration. I cannot defend the records of public Corporations. I am simply stating what they have claimed before the representatives of the people and what they are saying now: It conveys duplicity.
Foroyaa: But you said you have always doubted their figures. Can you explain why?
Halifa: The answer is short and simple: Since Public Corporations were said to be making tens and hundreds of millions of dalasis they should have been contributing hundreds of millions to government’s coffers as dividends annually. I frequently asked the Secretary of State for Finance whether the Public Corporations were paying dividends to government and his answer had mostly been in the negative. The biggest shock in my parliamentary life is the revelation made by the Secretary of State that public corporations did not only fail to pay dividends but were relying on the public purse to have their loans financed. This meant that all the wastages of the resources of public corporations on APRC activities such as July 22nd commemorations were at the expense of the tax payer.
During the campaign I explained these things to the electorate. I told them that public Corporations were not serving their principal functions of providing non tax revenue for public investment and provision of public services to expand the revenue base employment and services. Nobody who listened to the political broadcast can claim not to know that public enterprises were being mismanaged and that the end result under the APRC administration is to privatise them.
Foroyaa: How do you see the way the new share holders developed the state private partnership?
Halifa: I must say that I have not hidden my concerns since the period I was in the National Assembly. It was the Assembly that had the responsibility to Monitor the activities of Public Enterprises and scrutinize their accounts. The first outrageous revelation is the absence of any sort of inventory of all public investments: Can you believe that Government since the first republic had shares in companies like Senegambia Beach Hotel; Banjul Breweries and GAMCOT. How much dividend had government received from such shares? In 2005 the SoS for Finance told the National Assembly that the Gambia Divestiture Agency had embarked on the disposal of Government’s 50 per cent shareholding in Senegambia Beach Hotel.
However; when I asked the Secretary of State whether the Hotel had been paying dividend the answer was in the negative.
The national Assembly needs to look into all these things to ensure that there is inventory of all government shares and that there is payment of dividends into the consolidated revenue fund which should reflect in government estimates and budget annually.
Foroyaa: You are not satisfied with the way the divestiture is going, are you?
Halifa: In my view, there are areas where Government investments are not very necessary in the world today. I do not understand why over 400 million dalasis from Social Security could be utilized to purchase and refurbish Ocean Bay Hotel while Government is contemplating the privatization of the Social Security Corporation. Public Investment in Hotels is not a priority: This area is best left to the private sector: Other than the Social Service Sector like health band education, the public sector should focus on utilities; public transport, social security, ports facilities , public works and other financial, industrial and agricultural services vital for life, security, employment and general welfare. This Government has not established any priorities for public investment into the productive base of the economy to generate non tax revenue.
Needless to say it is deviating from the precedent it established for divestiture.
Foroyaa: What is the precedent?
Halifa: First and foremost the Secretary of State for Finance told the Assembly in 2006 that the government had a divestiture strategy which entailed the contracting of consultants to carryout technical, environmental and financial assessment of GPTC and GIA, that these sector studies and assessments would prepare the ground for government to take a position on the transactions to privatize them if it is advisable: The precedent established by the Divestiture Agency is to identify the percentage of the shares to be owned by a strategic investor and the part to be owned by institutional investors and then invite those interested to express their proposals for review. Despite all the criticisms the government has not come out to show the procedure it adopted to dispose of the shares of GAMTEL; The National Assembly members have powers to ask parliamentary questions for all the transactions to be revealed in broad day light. As minority leader I spared no
effort in unearthing this sort of transactions; I am sure people like Sidia Jatta will leave no stone unturned in unearthing the true nature of the deal.
Foroyaa: Let us move to the issues surrounding the Dalasi.
Continued
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
No. 119/2007, 11 – 14 October 2007
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