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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