The politicization of the Gambian Civil Service started with
the purging of the senior cadre of a service that was considered by many in
Africa as one of the best in the continent.
Small, but very efficient, in helping initial and, ultimately,
implementing government policies, the civil service quickly developed a
reputation as a leading recruitment ground for many international
organizations.
The success of the service was partly due to the ability of
President Jawara to keep it as apolitical as possible with a rigid seniority
system to guarantee stability. The conscious
decision to keep politics out of the civil service and Sir Dawda’s ability to
spot and retain bureaucratic talents, the likes of Eric Christensen, Francis
Mboge, Dr. J. Ayo-Langley and Abdou Sara Janha to lead the Civil Service as
Secretary General. These personalities were
the custodians a Civil Service that prided itself of its independence from
political interference, to ensure that it served the interest of the Gambian
people and not any politician or political party.
The 1994 coup ushered in a new era that was heavy on
politics and light on everything else that contributed to an orderly and
transparent bureaucracy. The rules of
the road governing the civil service were ignored, trampled upon and eventually
discarded in favor of opaque and unwritten rules and regulations manufactured
along the way by Jammeh designed to satisfy their thirst for money to buy their
way to permanency and absolute power.
Internationally-certified and standard procurement systems
and procedures were deemed to be too transparent and cumbersome and thus do not
lend themselves to rapid implementation of their programs financed with loan
from Taiwan that Gambians will have to pay.
These procedures were thrown overboard by the AFPRC.
Contracts were awarded willy-nilly without
tender and that includes the first projects under the junta such as the airport
terminal building and Arch-22 to memorialize their illegal and unconstitutional
treasonable acts of July 22, 1994. Yahya
A. J. J. Jammeh replaced the Major Tender in awarding contracts, contrary to
every rule in the procurement book.
Fast forward to 2017.
The Coalition Government headed by President Adama Barrow inherited all of
the structural changes Jammeh effected during his 22-year dictatorship, and the
hope has been that the new administration will start the deconstruction process
to rid the system of prevalent crony capitalist embedded in the Civil Service.
An overhaul of the civil service with a view to
restructuring it to meet the challenges of the new era is imperative. The rationalization of its staffing - both
numerically and qualitatively – is a matter of must and a prerequisite for a
successful generation and implementation of appropriate policy measures to address
the myriad of problems that threatens the stability and, in turn, the economic
progress of the country. The initial
staff audit that was recently concluded is a start but not sufficient to
provide a true and accurate profile of the civil service inherited from Jammeh.
Unfortunately, the trend since last January suggests that
the heavily politicized administrative infrastructure that Jammeh constructed
to maintain his dictatorship for twenty-two years is still intact and
relatively undisturbed which is unsettling to many Gambians. This is what, in our view, is fueling the
regime change versus the systems change debate.
The depoliticization process must start with updating of the
Cabinet Manual, as well as the General Orders and the Financial Instructions which
must undergo a rigorous public comment period and/or validation processes, as
an integral part of the participatory approaches to our new and hard earned
political dispensation. A politicized
civil service will rob it of its traditional independence necessary to provide
unvarnished advice to the government of the day.
