By Kebba Ansu Manneh
President Adama Barrow is, once again, facing public criticism after a storming revelation by Hon. Sanna Jawara that the president has started bribing some members of the National Assembly with monthly payouts. Hon. Jawara, who is a member of the National Assembly for Upper Falladu West, was elected to the legislative body in 2017 on the platform of the United Democratic Party (UDP). Hon. Jawara made the revelation in a strongly-worded statement of condemnation posted on his Facebook page, which was circulated on other social media platforms and subsequently published on news websites. In the statement, he wrote that for members of the National Assembly “to physically queue up for monthly handouts is the lowest any leader can portray and make mockery of the legislative arm of his government, I wonder if same offer is made to the judiciary.”
“It still feels an enigma to know that President Adama Barrow has started paying some parliamentarians D10,000.00 (ten thousand dalasis) each month in envelopes for what I don’t really want to know. It is either a true assessment of Dr. Ismaila Ceesay to argue that the President is clueless, or that the President is foolhardy to strike the biggest insult on our democracy,” Hon Jawara wrote in the statement.
Hon. Jawara did not state who among his colleagues were invited to the State House to receive the money neither did he state when this scheme of alleged monthly payment by the president started. The statement also did not state who in the State House, if not the president himself, invited the legislators to make the payments to members of the National Assembly, or if the payments were made to only members of the UDP.
This is not the first time president Barrow came under criticisms for giving gifts to lawmakers, a conduct many people in the public condemned as undermining the independence of the oversight institution over the executive branch. In April of 2017, President Barrow donated fifty-three pickup trucks to members of the National Assembly. All members of the National Assembly, except the four members of the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), accepted the vehicles.
This year both him and his wife’s private foundations came under public scrutiny when he allegedly donated about D11 million (eleven million dalasis) to Gambian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia. The gifts, according to the Office of the President, were donations made by an unnamed philanthropist. Few weeks ago, news media reported that a Chinese company seeking government contracts in The Gambia, in December 2017, deposited $700,000.00 (seven hundred thousand dollars) into the bank account of the private foundation of the first lady, the Fatoumata Bah Barrow Foundation. The foundation executive leaders said they were investigating into how the money came to be deposited into the account. They, however, have still not informed the public about the outcomes of their investigations.
This latest revelation made by Hon. Jawara took the nation by storm when he alleged that President Barrow has been giving some members of the National Assembly D10,000.00 (ten thousand dalasis) each month presumably to buy their loyalty to the president. “It is insane for any president to directly give money to any legislator, period!!!!” Hon Jawara wrote in the statement.
Hon. Jawara considers it both a misplaced priority for the president, but even more so abhorrent for members of the National Assembly to accept money from the President in spite of the difficulties their constituents are grappling with daily. “For whatever reason, there are more pertinent issues worth addressing than giving NAMs handouts. Poor Gambians are stagnant with no significant changes in their lives or businesses since the uprooting of dictatorship, faced with pitiable standards of living, dilapidated public services and prices of essential goods and services hiking everyday” the statement continued.
In the statement, he berated his colleagues for stooping themselves too low by accepting gifts from the president instead of holding public officials accountable to force the presidency to inculcate the habit of discipline, good governance and accountability.
“National Assembly Members of the 5th Legislature, how low will we bring ourselves down to. Instead of holding every Executive Public Office accountable, is this what we resort to? We are on the verge of betraying the trust and confidence of the Gambian people by sacrificing every fiber of our being [sic]. This is a big shame and an insult on our democracy and I indeed resolutely distant and disassociate myself from anyone who promotes and condone [sic] such shameful acts. Such outbursts makes [sic] you sometimes feel ashamed to be called a National Assembly Member in The Gambia,” the Hon. Jawara berated his colleagues in the statement.
Speaking to The Gambia Times to elaborate on the alleged scheme and payouts he charged against the president and some of his colleagues in his statement, Hon. Sanna Jawara, said he is “sorry if it is about this issue (referring to the alleged monthly installments to the members of the National Assembly), I cannot talk about it anymore.”
It was not long after the allegation was made for some members of the National Assembly who allegedly received that payments were identified. Rumors circulating in social media pointed to Hon. Saikouba Jarju of Busumbala constituency to be the principal leader mobilizing his colleagues to line up in the State House for the cash payouts. Hon. Jarju denied the allegations against him and some of his colleagues as baseless and unfounded.
“I did not receive any gift, nor did I mobilize any parliamentarian. The only gift I ever received from the president is the vehicle I am using,” Hon. Jarju told Gambia Times. He added that he is waiting for any purported evidence that may connect or link him to this revelation, stressing that he is ready to call a press conference to clear his name if such evidence surfaced.
Another member of the National Assembly whose name is circulating in the gossip circles to have received monthly payment from the president is Hon. Alagie Jawara of Upper Baddibu constituency. Speaking to The Times, he said “I don’t know anything about this issue you are talking about. I did not receive any money from the president. But I will be happy if you can tell me who said I received bribes from the president.”
“This is a lie I did not receive any money from the president as far as I am concerned. I have spoken with many of my colleagues who also confirmed that they did not receive any money from the president, but we would like Sanna Jawara to come out with the names of NAMs who received the money,” said Hon. Abdoulie Ceesay of Old Yundum constituency. Hon. Ceesay insinuated that Hon. Sanna Jawara maybe harboring ulterior motives that may have dragged him to such outrageous accusations against his own colleagues, adding that the only visit he made to the president was a visit by members of the National Assembly to brief him on the programs they are embarking in their constituencies.
The minority leader of the National Assembly Hon. Samba Jallow of the National Reconciliation Party (NRP) said he came across the story on the social media and the National Assembly is yet to make any statement regarding this storming bribery revelation. “This issue is just more than Sanna is about the integrity of the assembly that comes to question, but I am sure by Monday we will look into this serious allegation to get to the bottom of this issue,” he said.
Despite all these denials of the allegation from the UDP members, one UDP member of the National Assembly, Hon Madi Ceesay of Sere Kunda West constituency, admitted in an interview to a local journalist that he had received the D10,000.00 (ten thousand dalasis) payout from the president through one Mr. Lamin Cham. In a defensive tone and anger, he said to the journalist that “I did not ask” the reason the money was given to him by the president. In a rhetorical question, he ask whether it was compulsory for him to have asked the reason the money was offered to him by the president.
According to sources, the president is desperately seeking to secure the leadership of the UDP to clear his nomination as the next presidential candidate of the party. Reports say that he has begun giving remunerations to regional and committee chairpersons of the UDP across the country to buy their support to lead the party in the next presidential election; and that the payout to members of the National Assembly belonging to the party is in line with advancing that objective.
Barrow officially resigned from the UDP in October 2016 to allow him to run as the presidential candidate of the Coalition which was created to unite all the political parties under the umbrella of no single political party. Under the agreements in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), he is supposed to conduct elections in three years after taking office in January 2017; stay neutral between the candidates; not contest the upcoming presidential election; and not endorse any candidate to facilitate a level-playing field for all political parties and their candidates.
Audios of the president speech at an event over the weekend in the State House are circulating in social media in which he stated that any challenge to him by members of his party for the nomination as the presidential candidate will be an attempt of plotting a coup d’état against him. He falsely stated that even in the world’s most advanced democracy, the United States, sitting presidents are not challenged in their parties for nominations at conventions. This latest pronouncement of the president to loyalists at the State House is an indication of a more apparent power struggle between the president and his vice president Ousainou Darboe, who has been the secretary general and only leader of the UDP since its founding in 1996.