What Nyang Njie said in a discussion programme relating to the capacity of opposition parties is as follows:
The political architecture of The Gambia, not PDOIS, not UDP not GDC. Overall, everyone has a manifesto, which is good, and I love it. But if you look at politics, manifestos even if you’re not in government, it has to be operationalised, either virtually or physically.
What do I mean by that is that every government or every political party by default is a government in waiting and governments in waiting should transform their manifesto from literature to an operational document.
What do I mean by that? Today, if you go to most if not all political parties, they may have experts within them but if you ask them about the projected revenue for October, November or December, the only thing they can do is look at an IMF figure or look at the Ministry of Finance’s figure. Now the problem with that is the parliament in general, they have oversight function. Someone (who) has an oversight function is a police that is policing a police called the executive. So, now if you want to police the police, you need an independent data set.
If you go to America, they have office of the management of budget. When the White house brings documents to the parliament, they have their own data set, the treasury will come with its own data set and now that’s when oversight can be functional.
Oversight is a process but it’s not a function, it’s a process in the sense that the law asks for it and they go through the process but it’s not functional in its real sense because if we’ve had oversight, supplementary appropriation would not have happened. From 2018 to 2023, all the budgets had supplementary appropriations, which shows that the oversight function is not effective because if you tell me that I can live on something for a month and you later come on the eighth (month) and ask me money.
Something is fundamentally wrong. But not only fundamentally wrong, it’s repetitive. If you can remember this started during Mam Burry Njie’s time, and this was even seen in Amadou Sanneh’s time if my memory serves me well. The political parties face resource constraints and when I say resource I’m not only talking about (human) resource because some of these things are very expensive.
Currently, none of these parties has members who take their time to build revenue models or forecasting models because it takes time, you need to go to different offices to get data, you need to know what the baseline is and also you need to have someone with the skillset and competence to do it. So, this is a problem. Manifestoes are great but if you operationalise a manifesto even at a virtual level where you stimulate it into a model in terms of some of the critical inputs i.e revenue, one would be able to foresee something before it comes.
For instance, the impact of the amount of money spent by government during the covid on the domestic debt could not be eased by the savings or donor aid. They raised treasury bills for social intervention. What it caused adversely is more than the positives and most of the time, either our political parties could not articulate this at the opportune time, but they wait until damage is already done and they come and that defeats the whole idea of oversight. I can openly say that all the parties lack real time data to monitor the executive.
So, I ask whether if I walk into PDOIS offices today, I can get projections on certain indicators people consider. For the economy, you don’t have to wait until something happens, you have to be ahead of the economy to program and manage it. There’s one thing talking about the economy but there’s another thing knowing the economy and I think knowing the economy is a problem for all parties and it doesn’t mean PDOIS is weak or UDP is weak. It means that there are structural rigidities and structural impediments that are causing some of these things and every party should have an early warning system of the Gambian economy to raise the alarm before the fire starts.
HALIFA SALLAH’S
Halifa Sallah responded to what Mr. Njie said as follows:
Mr. Njie’s statement has two elements. His opinion that opposition parties in The Gambia are governments in waiting but are not currently resourced with data to hold the government into account or manage public finance if accorded the responsibility to govern are all based on unsubstantiated assumptions waiting for elucidation.
It opens up a constructive national conversation on the state of preparedness of opposition parties before they assume public office. Secondly his opinion that supplementary appropriation is prevalent in the budgetary system of the country due to poor oversight also requires further interrogation to enlighten Gambians on the public financial system of the country. It is such a relevant and constructive discourse on issues that are of common concern to the Gambian people that can promote common understanding and engender a critical mass that would be capable of making informed choice in selecting leaders of the country. It also enables a country to build a pool of robust thinkers, innovators, architects and builders of a destiny of liberty, dignity and prosperity.
It is true that opposition parties aim to be governments in the making or in waiting. However, it is equally true that it is not their constitutional mandate to try to build a state within a state. Their duty is to monitor and evaluate all the instruments, institutions, policies, plans, programmes, projects, as well as, the administrative and managerial practices of the existing government to know its strength and weaknesses and proffer remedies or offer alternatives, should they be given the opportunity to govern.
This is precisely what PDOIS has been doing since it came into being. A book published in 1992 entitled, “The State of the Gambian and International Economy” is a clear testimony to PDOIS’ vigilance in exposing the weaknesses of the incumbent and offering innovative solutions. PDOIS’ recent input into the constitution building process and its input into the constitution building process in 1995 are living testimonies of its capacity to initiate innovative and transformative agenda in matters of statecraft. The conversation will however, continue in other fora to broaden and corroborate the evidence to prove that PDOIS is well placed to lead The Gambia towards a destiny of liberty, dignity and prosperity.
The issue, however, is to be precise and concise in dealing with the issue of public finance raised by Mr. Njie just to encourage such conversation that may contribute to the building of the dexterity of the public mind. Money controlled by, on behalf of, or held in public trust by government should be of concern to every Gambian citizen. This is the cornerstone of public finance.
A party in office or waiting to be in office must have elementary knowledge of the laws that make it mandatory to deposit. all revenue or receipts into a consolidated fund as well as to further authorise the issuing or withdrawal of money from the fund to meet expenditure charged on it. In short, there are legally established procedures that must be adhered to raise and spend public funds. There are also legally established structures that are provided for revenue and expenditure to be estimated, approved and transformed into an Appropriation Act that must be executed by all budgetary agencies in order for public service to be rendered to the country. These are procedures established by the Constitution, The Public Finance Act, the Budget Management and accountability Act and the Financial Instructions.
Hence, every Government in office must have a Minister of Finance and Permanent Secretary who must work together to involve vote controllers in the budget preparatory process. They must cause them to prepare and submit to the Ministry estimates of revenue and recurrent expenditure and development fund receipts and expenditure to ensure the preparation of draft estimates. It is obvious that budgetary law requires all agencies to prepare their cash plans which enable them to give comprehensive details of all sources of their revenue and expenditure including what comes from government, internally generated fund and donor funding.
Suffice to say, the sources of government revenue from tax and non-tax sources, domestic and external grants, departmental self-raised revenue, domestic and external borrowing, development and recurrent expenditure, etc., are stipulated by public finance law.
Hence, once the Ministry of Finance receives all the estimates from the different vote controlling agencies, its role is simply to validate and consolidate the estimates of revenue and recurrent expenditure and development receipt and expenditure for the following financial year for presentation to the President. Upon acceptance of the submission, the President has the duty to cause the estimates to be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration and approval. Once the estimates are approved, they are converted into an Appropriation Bill, which if passed, becomes the Appropriation Act that is relied on to provide public services and finance the government machinery.
The public finance Act has shown all the possible sources of income. Hence, all the revenue collection bodies simply require proper supervision to do their work. It is therefore not defensible to claim that a party is not ready to govern or cannot gather statistics when GBoS and many other agencies are there to give information and we have been gathering relevant information without any difficulty. The machinery for public finance has been there since the colonial period and was inherited and reformed under the first Republic and further inherited and reformed under the first phase of the second Republic. This is why it was ridiculous to refer to Gambia as an improbable nation or beat our chest for being able to run a state. The state exists with its machinery for public finance. It has a legal foundation for establishing institutions and procedures for public finance and has personnel with institutional memory to operate the financial machinery. This is why governments can come and go because the constitutions, institutions, public servants and institutional memory are preserved for incoming governments to inherit. There is no party that can come to office and lack the capacity to govern. That is the incontrovertible truth. That is why every Tom, Dick and Harry now believes that one could become a head of state and run a government. The issues that are worth discussing are the qualities of leadership that may enable a party to be instrumental in making public finance to be more responsive to the developmental aspirations of a people. Is there a correlation between honest, knowledgeable and selfless leadership with proper management of public wealth for the common good?
To take leave of this subject of the preparedness of opposition parties to govern, the leading thinkers of the country should help the nation know what is in the manifesto of each political party regarding how they intend to harness and use public money if they are in government.
For example, PDOIS has emphasised self-raised village and ward revenue should remain in the village and ward treasuries to be expended by village and ward development committees for self-reliant and self-determined development of villages and wards.
The portion of revenue raised by central government that is to be allocated to the regions would be distributed in a balanced and proportionate manner to meet the needs of all the regions of the country. This should be a subject of debate by Gambian thinkers, and I can go on and on. Hopefully a Public Lecture on Public Finance for a government that exists for the people, to be organised, may throw more light on this subject matter.
Finally, the issue of supplementary appropriation cannot be negated by budgetary law even though the economic development of a nation may ultimately render the law to be dormant in the statute book. Currently no minister of finance can assure the nation that one would have no use for supplementary appropriation because of efficient, effective and robust oversight.
The reason is simple. Since independence, each existing government depends on taxes, loans and grants to meet its development expenditure. Grants are often pledges that may not be honoured. Budgetary law provides for the possibility of creating a Contingency Fund to meet unexpected expenditure. It also allows vote controllers to prioritise expenditure by cutting expenses to prevent the introduction of supplementary appropriation bills as long as they do not undermine efficient delivery of services or productivity.
Notwithstanding, it is significant to indicate that the government of the first republic and the two other governments that follow are yet to develop the capacity to build a productive base to earn sufficient income to augment taxation that now constitute the major revenue base of the country. Hence, supplementary appropriation is part of their financial DNA because of gross dependence on budgetary support. The chapter and verse of this discuss should lead all of us to conclude that the structures and personnel to make public finance operation to enable any ruling party executive or an Independent one to cause the delivery of public services at public expense has been there since colonial times and still is and will always be there regardless of who comes to office. The technocrats who have acquired the knowledge and skills to operate the system due either to share practical experience or professional training will always be able to make the public finance system functional on behalf of any executive authority. In short, it is not impossible for any party that comes to office to provide public service at public expense. What is difficult and the challenge worth debating on is how to make quality public service universally available, accessible and affordable at public expense. The response given to such a challenge is what differentiates political parties and should enable monitors to gauge the quality of leadership they would be able to deliver. This is where independent, impartial and constructive assessment by critical thinkers like Mr Njie is either absent or thin.
Let me take this opportunity to inform Mr. Njie that I was once in charge of the political bureau of PDOIS. We produced pamphlets on the Constitution and analysed budget speeches on a regular basis. I conducted public relations for the party by monitoring all relevant criticisms and giving fitting responses not to ward off critics but to encourage the expression of divergent views to promote the enlightenment of a population long kept in the closet of ignorance by the absence of high-grade intellectual discourse. This was one way of levelling the uneven development of political education and general awareness in the party. The Political Bureau still exists and has the following functions:
Article 32
The Political Bureau shall exercise the following functions:
(a) Maps out plans for the development of the Party machinery;
(b) Conducts research and produces Party literature;
(c) Maintains a library;
(d) Conducts political education;
(e) Conducts public relations for the Party;
(f) Trains the Party Workers.
The information bureau is current on all national issues and is keeping the nation informed on all issues. The function of the Information Bureau is as follows:
Article 43
The Information Bureau shall be the publicity arm of the Party. It functions under the general direction and control of the Central Committee.
Article 46
The Information Bureau shall exercise the following functions:
(a) Publishes an information bulletin for the Party;
(b) Relies on investigative journalism to gather information for publication and to serve as raw material for the formulation of Party policies;
(c) Maintains a bureau for policy research to gather materials for the dissemination of information through all means of communication available to enlighten the Gambian people.
There is a constitutional review process of the party that is on-going and will ultimately lead all these institutions to become more robust to enable Gambians to become aware of all aspects of national life. It is envisaged that partnership will be extended to people like Mr. Njie, who may not be politically affiliated, to build a knowledge-based society that will enable Gambia and Gambians to benefit from the best that knowledge could engender.
