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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
 Posted - 31 Dec 2009 : 23:18:07
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quote:
It is very easy to sit behind a computer in the West and heap scorn and abuse at those who are on the ground, daily confronting a brutal dictatorship. When was the last time you stepped on Gambian soil and publicly make known the sentiments that you have been lamenting against this regime in the forum? If you want freedom you must be a able to go get it yourself. Nobody will give you the freedom you tailor-made on a platter.
nice. |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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Janko
Gambia
1267 Posts |
Posted - 01 Jan 2010 : 00:06:24
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Thanks, turk
This is about Mr. Politician, not Janko.
What is your take on the way forward?
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Clean your house before pointing a finger ... Never be moved by delirious Well-wishers in their ecstasy |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 01 Jan 2010 : 00:14:07
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Janko
I am internationalist. I dislike tribalism and nationalism. And I do share your view on tribalism. However, I appreciate Gambians in Gambia more than diaspora when it comes to Gambian politics. |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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Janko
Gambia
1267 Posts |
Posted - 01 Jan 2010 : 01:01:42
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Thanks, turk
Start a new topic about ...
Please, give those who have something say the space.
Happy new year
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Clean your house before pointing a finger ... Never be moved by delirious Well-wishers in their ecstasy |
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Karamba
United Kingdom
3820 Posts |
Posted - 01 Jan 2010 : 03:15:32
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quote:
Originally posted by turk
Janko
I am internationalist. I dislike tribalism and nationalism. And I do share your view on tribalism. However, I appreciate Gambians in Gambia more than diaspora when it comes to Gambian politics.
Such a deep bite to chew!!! However, your right of choosing that has to be defended all the way.
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Karamba |
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Janko
Gambia
1267 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jan 2010 : 16:24:24
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Thanks, Karamba
Why vote for a political party that is not able to explain where tax money would be spent?
This is about an alternative budget proposition from the opposition in the Gambian political arena, about giving the electorate a choice.
Hence political leadership is giving the electorate a choice by presenting something concrete to compare with. Any political party that has a problem with presenting an alternative is not taking the electorate seriously.
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Clean your house before pointing a finger ... Never be moved by delirious Well-wishers in their ecstasy |
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shaka
996 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jan 2010 : 00:00:17
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| Being realistic or pragmatic is to understand that an alternative budget is merely speculative not a guarantee. Being realistic is not to take the Gambia government budget at face value. Being realistic is undertanding that the figures of a budget are base on sound statistic, computed data, in depth feasibility studies and periodic audit reports. How can you make a meaningful budget without comparative data from periodic government audit reports. Last time we checked some government departments have gone ten years and more without undergoing any form of auditing whatsover. The only thing the Gambia government annual budget reports tells you is how much money it claims it will give/receive or have given to or received from individual state departments, parastatals and ministries. They do not even tell you where the money come from let alone account for every dime of their spending spree. They do not tell you for example how much was spent on hospitals, medication, medical equipement or how much was received as health grants, donations in cash, equipments and medation. Neither do they give a damn where monies, equipment and items are allocated to because there is no proper accounting or auditing measures to account for them. The very reasons why medication and equipment continue to dissapear from public hospitals to private pharmacies and clinics. The same reasons why top judges are alleged to have siphon away million of dalasis over three and more years. The same reason why personnel of the army top brass are jailed for swindling millions of dollar worth of equipment, money and weaponry. Nobody can tell you whether millions of dollars of Taiwanese and other monies, vehicles, equipment and materials from international sources and NGOs are grants, loans or gifts, neither does the annual budgets account for them. The whole government system is a sham. From this chaos how exactly do you expect the opposition to get comparative facts and data as well as periodic audit reports to prepare an alternative budget. You do not expect them to start telling us they will be getting money from Allah's central bank to budget for such and such ventures, do you? There is a big difference between fantasy and reality Janko. There are a million and one more pragmatic thing to request from the opposition better than a speculative alternative budget. |
Edited by - shaka on 03 Jan 2010 00:06:55 |
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Janko
Gambia
1267 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jan 2010 : 21:11:27
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Thanks, Shaka
Interesting points and that is why a change of perspective is necessary in the political arena. It is the task of an opposition politician to be on top of issues like the ones you mentioned. Is it really that impossible for the opposition to get good information from donors if they would not get it from the administration? Corruption is a monster that must be fought by all means.
The opposition should not give up the idea of presenting its own budget proposition because the data available is not reliable or not up to date. It is not necessarily correct that one can only propose a budget or a development plan from a perfect or a hundred percent accurate data, hence the very idea of data collection is to provide an indicator, or trend in a given situation, a helping tool not a solution. Rather the inconsistency of data in this case is a point to make, a motivation and an argument to make. .
There has never been a budget proposition that has been perfect or hundred percent implemented. The idea or rather the purpose of a budget proposition is to put things in perspective, to marry ideology and reality and to broaden the horizon of everyday awareness.
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Clean your house before pointing a finger ... Never be moved by delirious Well-wishers in their ecstasy |
Edited by - Janko on 03 Jan 2010 21:48:58 |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 00:03:48
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Janko
This reminds me the previous debate we had. Shaka has presented very good case 'factors need to exist' for a ideal democratic governence. Remember my argument was without infrastructure i.e. IT, skills, technology, statistics, knowledge, wealth of the nation, it is very difficult to accomplish full democracy in Gambia. That is why my approach was democratication will be parallel with the improvements in the areas in the long term more realistic. Instead of demanding democracy. Without the infrastructure, technology, resources, know-how, it is challenging to apply democratic principles. |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 00:07:21
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| Is there Public Administration Law in Gambia? Or a judiary for Public Administration? Or independent Audit for Public services? |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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shaka
996 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 03:33:39
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If an alternative development plan was your request for the opposition instead of an alternative annual budget then we will not be having this disagreement Janko. I am a strong advocate for an alternative development plans from opposition politicians and their political parties because it goes to show their awareness and grasp of daily political events and developments within the Gambia and the outside world. That is why it pisses me off when some politicians choose to dodge the question about their future development plan or way forward, with their usual "i am not presumptuous" mantra. What the hell are you doing in politics if you are not presumptuous. The people don't expect any politician to have all the solutions to their proplems today. That is why they ask for you plans for tomorrow if they give you power. They are daring you to go into the future. Since no politician is a clairvoyant, you can only be presumptuous, while taking into consideration all thing being equal or otherwise, when talking about tomorrow. Avoiding the question amounts to being scared to be judged for you opinion. To request an annual alternative budget from the opposition in a chaotic government system like ours however, is going a bit too far.
To answer you question from the above, i'd say no, it is not impossible to get information about the daily activities of the government if you really want it and know where to look for it. Like you mentioned above, there are other avenues of sourcing information besides from a near-police state order like our government and its state departments. There is always the creditors, donors and other development partner ofcourse. But then the problem is not just the source of external money and donations but the source of domestic revenue and how they are spent or allocated. We certainly should put pressure on the opposition to dig up facts and answer questions daily posed by people regarding the state of government affairs by all means. For example, if the Taiwanese government through its embassy in the Gambia is not so forthcoming about what is loans, grants or donations from the people of Taiwan to the Gambian people, why not forge a mutually beneficial link with the Taiwanese opposition. Information from creditors and development partners like the EU, IMF, World Bank, ADB, US Government and some NGOs is always readily available. Why the opposition is not taking advantage of these alternative avenues to enlighten the masses about goververnment borrowing and source of revenue as well as gifts on behalf of the Gambian people is still beyond. Very rare do you hear our politicians speak, quoting relevant figure and statitics from these institution and others.
This year's budget estimate speech presented by the Minister of Finance is the biggest farce in recent memory. Not only are they deliberately supressing figures but budget was also designed to keep the masses in the dark about government activities in the last year. Gone are the accompanying appendix about individual sectoral allocation like how much money is budgeted for The Office of The President, eduaction, health, defence etc. I have always wondered why there is the huge amounts always budgetted for 'others'. What is in the 'others' that no one want to break down into simplified figures? This year it seems like not only will they tell us what is 'others' but there will be no figures. Some government parastals, development sectors and ministries were deliberately omitted because of their extra-budgetary activities. Take sports for example where tens of millions of dalasis of extra-budgetary money was lavishly spent on the Baby Scorpions, the Mohammed Yahya Jammeh tournament and securing the services of foreign coaches including a known fraudster. But none pisses me off more than the Ministry of Petroleum and Mines headed by the President as well as the Gambia National Petroleum Company(GNPC) under the same ministry. The last three budgets speeches including the present one fail to mention the GNPC as if it does not exist. Yet still in 2007 government borrowed D136,913,000, D102,683,000 in 2008 and fcuk knows how much in 2009 from the Central Bank of the Gambia for the operations of the GNPC. To date not a single butut in interest or the amounts in full has been paid to the Central Bank. Going by this trend they will soon bankrupt the Central Bank which continues to post deficit figures in tens of millions of dalasis every year. But just exactly what do they do at GNCP apart from the annual pilgrimage to Kanilai Farms to plant and harvest the president's crops and regularly wining and dining the Canadian international con-man Roger Hines and his bogus Buried Hills Corporations. They have an MD, Deputy MD, Senior and Junior Engineers with all kinds of weird degrees and Phd's from Taiwanese universities but what the fcuk do they engineer for the Gambian people to warant these atrocious sums of money? Damn, i gotta go before i punch my computer screen!! |
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Dalton1
3485 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 17:11:02
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Bro Turk,
Something I will be borrowing from you in my contribution to Janko's Debate under this debate, and that is, 'internationalist'.
I am almost done with a lengthy research with some interesting findings.
Happy new year bro shaka!
yj |
"There is no god but Allah (SWT); and Muhammad (SAW)is His last messenger." shahadah. Fear & Worship Allah (SWT) Alone! (:
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toubab1020
12311 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 17:14:06
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Can't wait ! 
quote:
Originally posted by Dalton1
Bro Turk,
Something I will be borrowing from you in my contribution to Janko's Debate under this debate, and that is, 'internationalist'.
I am almost done with a lengthy research with some interesting findings.
Happy new year bro shaka!
yj
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"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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Janko
Gambia
1267 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jan 2010 : 19:58:13
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Thanks, Shaka,
Interesting outline of the difficulties we are faced with and you made it clear that something needs to be done hence too late is better than never. There is no disagreement, the different points of departure is healthy.
An alternative development plan that is not financed is not credible. However following the financial proposal to the letter is not important the point is to have a comprehensive picture of the plan in its entirety and to put the development plan in perspective.
The idea of an annual budget proposition is to set the bar high hence we do not expect anything less from our politicians. An annual budget proposition would put the opposition on top of things not only at home but internationally as well and would be a healthy principle for keeping the political arena informed and updated.
I do not remember the last time I heard our politicians argue with concrete figures concerning political agendas or projects, or ideas. Nor have I ever heard them discourse each others political positions concretely and in terms of financial possibilities.
Your takes are worthwhile and without the PC, well, there would be no exchange between us. Yes, sometimes I think there is no hope especially when I think about W. Juwaras prophesies. I try to find what has changed in the political arena since the last elections and if nothing new happen what the outcome would be?
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Clean your house before pointing a finger ... Never be moved by delirious Well-wishers in their ecstasy |
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shaka
996 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jan 2010 : 00:40:26
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There was an Audit Unit i think and later merged with the Accoutant General's department if i am right. But they are only active and independent as the authorities wants them to be i guess.quote:
Originally posted by turk
Is there Public Administration Law in Gambia? Or a judiary for Public Administration? Or independent Audit for Public services?
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