President Barrow Must Appoint Loyal and Competent Cabinet & Staff With Key Special Advisers in His New Administration May Be The Most & Diverse & Inclusive in History

Fatoumatta: In 2016, President Adama Barrow became the first presidential candidate challenger to unseat an incumbent president in Gambia’s history since independence. Barrow was sworn in amid great hope and enormous goodwill both national and international with the widespread perception of good governance, restoring fundamental human rights, and reinforcing by addressing the gap between policies and practices, strengthening the Gambia’s emergent democracy, and protecting the rule of law.

Following his 2017 inauguration, the country was awash with optimism that his government would reignite the Gambia’s fading democracy and pull off an ‘economic turnaround’ to recover the economy. Unfortunately, however, he was reelected in this crispy new lopsided Presidential election in Gambian history. Such a lopsided presidential election is unheard of in modern history. Nevertheless, President Barrow’s victory is the biggest landslide in a free, fair, and transparent presidential election.

Fatoumatta: December 4, 2021, Presidential Elections came with much apprehension, zeal, and exuberance. While two presidential candidates, leader of the United Democratic Party( UDP), Mr. Abubacarr Ousainou Darboe and Mr.Mama Kandeh, the Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), are still nursing their wounds defeat as they head to the courts to challenge the outcome of 2021, Presidential Elections. Now that the Presidential Election is over, governance needs to be kick-started. For a few months before the elections, the absence of governance has been conspicuously discernible as political actors were understandably politicking, aligning, and realigning as well as de-camping as the case may be. Finally, however, the elections are over, and the country needs effective governance at all levels.

Now that the inauguration is upon us, the real work is about to start. For the presidency to have the complete confidence of the people and acquire continued support from citizens, it must absorb only the most key asset of including credible agents. Because, no matter how reasonable or principled the President is said to be, if the Gambian people do not believe in the messengers he appoints, they will not believe in his message.

Fatoumatta: In an ideal world, cabinet ministers and special advisers competent in economic issues, security issues, public policy, strategic policy, and legal advisers have relevant skills, specialized knowledge, or political experience and must be good administrators, but patronage is more important than sense in politics. A ministerial position is the goal of many pseudo-intellectuals and careerists’ politicians with high ambitions. It is a way for a president to reward his team of career government cronies and captain of ignoramuses for stamping their mark on the political landscape.

At the government level, it is for one to be concerned with the pace at which members of the President’s cabinet and key special advisers will be appointed. As we all know, it took a while before ministers were appointed five years ago, resulting in the slow pace of development. While the official reason given was that the Coalition partners and the President wanted to ensure that only credible and competent cabinet ministers were appointed to his government, we have witnessed some cabinet ministers performing below par.

Choosing cabinet ministers and appointments in crucial positions in a diverse and multi-cultural country like the Gambia is complicated balancing. The one whose responsibility it is must juggle the need for skilled leaders to repay political allies while navigating the shifting alliances of internal party politics and eliminating “accumulated deadwood.” Then there is the need to carefully maintain an ethnic and religious balance and make sure each of the country’s seven demographic regions is somehow represented.

Fatoumatta: This time, it looks like it will be a little different when a cabinet is dissolved, for President Barrow officially sworn in for his second term. A new cabinet and a team of competent policy advisers will likely be announced imminently. Cabinet ministers and special advisers perform an essential role within democracies to provide direction and get things done. Moreover, the heads of their departments are the bridgeheads between politics and policy implementation by the departmental bureaucracy. Therefore, the importance of the individuals that should be placed in these positions cannot be overstated.

Aside from quickly constituting the cabinet, the President should also ensure that appointments are based on merit, efficiency, and capability. The norm of placing square pegs in round holes should be made away. Many developed and developing countries attract the best brains into governance and civil service to formulate laudable policies. In the Gambia, however, the reverse is the case: we place inexperienced, insincere, and incapable individuals into critical roles. We expect them to outperform those invested in essential human capital development sectors. This should not be the case as we advance.

Fatoumatta: The people that President Adama Barrow includes in his cabinet and his team of special advisers must convince Gambians that they care about the Gambia and not just about lining their pockets. They need to show empathy to the plight of the ordinary man on the street and propose plans that have been formulated with the interests and concerns of citizens in mind. As such, the chosen few are required to interest citizens. This means all citizens: appointees should not only keep an eye on the happy few who have access to them, but they have to show compassion with the nearly two hundred million civilians facing difficulties or who are vulnerable to the setbacks of the Gambian terrain.

Those eventually selected must win the respect and support of the public for their views and plans. To be successful in this respect, credibility is a crucial asset. We need credible leaders who are considered competent, trustworthy, and caring. The competence required relates to knowledgeability, decisiveness, bravery, performance, and political strategy. Trustworthiness includes keeping promises, consistency in views and actions, honesty and sincerity, and dependability. Caring means having an eye for citizens’ needs, concerns, morality, constructive attitude, and no self-enrichment. Not only should the appointees be competent, trustworthy, and caring, they should also be perceived as such. People who have a dossier of corruption and questionable habits with public funds should not even appear on any appointment list.

Those chosen should have the vision to inspire people, an effective communicative performance, policy views that inspire action, be decisive, and sound judgment and skill to process large amounts of complex information. They must be honest, sincere, have a stability of views, and have authenticity. They must convince the public that they have the interest of public needs. Gambians need to be confident that they are in politics to promote their position.

Fatoumatta: During his second term, President Barrow, along with his cabinet ministers and key advisers, Barrow should focus more on improving the living conditions of ordinary Gambians and enhancing development projects. In addition, he needs to employ all constitutional means possible to checkmate unemployment in the country, the insecurity challenges, endermic poverty ravaging parts of the country, and provide a future for out-of-school children and campaign fighting public sector corruption.

Introspection, President Adams Barrow should heed the ever-relevant counsel of the 16th-century Florentine political thinker and theorist, Niccolo Machiavelli. In his classic, The Prince, they once noted that the character of any regime or administration could be discerned from the choice of cabinet ministers. In his words, “The choice of ministers is a matter of no small moment to a Prince. Whether they shall be good or not depends on his prudence, so that the readiest conjecture we can form of the character and sagacity of a Prince is from seeing what sort of men he has about him. When they are at once capable and faithful, we may always account him wise, since he has known to recognize their merit and to retain their fidelity. But if they be, otherwise, we must pronounce unfavorably of him, since he has committed a first fault in making his selection.”

Again, Machiavelli’s bell is tolling, and President Adama Barrow must take heed if he intends by any dint of imagination to leave behind an enduring legacy in the governance of the Gambia. The Constitution is there as a guide, the complexity of the country is there as a compass and wisdom, divine grace is hovering around to be tapped. However, whereas the Constitution envisages equity and inclusivity, in practice, the complexity of the country and the corresponding sensibilities of its people require a delicate balancing of interests in ways that no one will be left out of the scheme of things.

No President cannot do the job alone. Governance is teamwork. The Constitution gives President Barrow the latitude to choose his cabinet team or just a bunch of figureheads. The Gambian Constitution practically makes the Gambian President an Imperial Presidency with executive powers to hire and fire, exercising near-divine powers that in many ways compromise democracy. This is one of the reasons why a return to Westminster-type Parliamentary rule may well, in the long run, be the best option for the Gambia.

Fatoumatta: Therefore, I hope I will be forgiven if I get to it right away. While I have nothing against the 2016 presidential transition team, I think those around President Adama Barrow failed to do an excellent job of facilitating the smooth take-off of the Change space-craft. Instead of looking for ways of bringing competent men and women to work with the President and his coalition government. President Adama Barrow’s closest advisers have allowed the Godfathers and elite political lobbyists to regroup and hijack the People’s mandate. The mess at the National Assembly is a case in point. How can we talk about change when the status quo is busy making a comeback? Equally troubling was the mad scramble for positions, including hiring thoroughly incompetent and mediocre people in the civil service, possibly corrupt individuals! In any case, filling the top positions in the “traditional” way is hardly consistent with the principle of change. Suppose I have a say in the matter. In that case, the President and his Secretary-General and Head of the Civil Service throw all the critical positions open and (as is now done in Kenya) require those interested in competing, that is, to compete, not in party elders’ private dwellings, but in the open. The office of the President,Office of the Secretary General and the Personnel Management Office should did design a form to screen ministerial and senior civil service candidates. Yet, unless the President resorts to open competition, he would face a tough time clipping the godfathers’ wings. Implementing his agenda would also be next to impossible if he is held hostage to powerful vested interests.

Fatoumatta: Oh, lest I forget, all that I have heard so far on “cost of governance is expensive” is pure nonsense. Those canvassing the increasing number of ministries know nothing about public administration and talk less of basic economics. You may add some ministries for crying out loud. The government must do other things to get a grip on government outlays. There is also what is called value-for-money. Nobody is talking about that. Nobody is even asking in how many ways can we make the public service meet ongoing and unfolding challenges without breaking anybody’s bank!

For instance, in Africa, Namibia, the new President has created additional Ministries–including Ministries for Poverty Eradication, Public Enterprise Management, and Industrialization. When his critics drew attention to the rising cost of governance, he told them to watch out for the outcome of his reforms. Some of these reforms have started bearing fruit. However, as part of the reform program, the Namibian President has drawn up performance contracts between himself and his ministers as Head of State. Namibia is clearly on the march. This raises the question of when the Gambia, the smiling coast of Africa, would take the first step to peace, prosperity, and good governance.

Fatoumatta: We expect more from Mr. President. Since he is said to be a man of integrity, one should be optimistic that the next four years with an honest, trustworthy, credible, and caring set of people will be more eventful than the last five were. Gambians deserve the needed development obtainable in other countries. With the right set of people in place, perhaps this leadership can attain it. President Barrow as he forms his next government. May he have the knowledge, courage, wisdom, and foresight to make the right and proper choice.