Still on the review of the Explanatory Notes to the Barrow Papers 2024…

On assets declaration or disclosure, the attempt to legitimize and cover up acts of corruption and protect corrupt officials especially at the highest echelons of Government has become glaringly apparent.

There is enough evidence around the world that corrupt public officials do register some of their assets, liabilities, and business interests in the names of their spouses or children just to hide. Hence it is a common practice in national laws across the world to impose disclosure obligations on the spouses and children of public officials. This is what is provided in the 2020 Draft under section 103 which the Barrow Papers removed. Such practices can be found in numerous countries across the world.

Their explanation is that such disclosure obligation on spouses would infringe on the privacy of the spouse and expose the spouse to undue scrutiny, “and therefore distract the process and dilute the effectiveness of the transparency measures.

This explanation is a complete misrepresentation of disclosure obligations of spouses of public officials and can only be intended to aid and abet corruption. Disclosure by spouses is only intended to determine that the official did not engage in any illegal acquisition of wealth and using the spouse to cover up. If in the disclosure process the spouse was found to be clean, such disclosure will neither be made public nor pursued legally. Hence disclosure by spouses fully protects their privacy.

The same misguided explanation is given for the removal of mandatory disclosure obligations for the vice president and ministers when they leave public office. Rather the Barrow Papers says such obligations should be a discretionary matter for the Anti-Corruption Commission. Again, they said disclosure requirements are intrusive into the private life of these public officials. It appears the Barrow Papers is not aware that a vice president and ministers are put in charge of public resources for which they must be held accountable in how they had used them.

It is common in the Gambia and in many countries that when a person is elected or appointed into public office to see him or her start building homes and acquiring lands and vehicles and dramatically transforming his or her lifestyle beyond his or her legal earnings.

For example, during his 22-year tenure as president, Yaya Jammeh built a whole palace in Kanilai with a ranch covering acres upon acres of land with a zoo full of all sorts of wild animals. Yaya further went on to acquire hundreds of landed properties across the country as well as dozens of luxury vehicles with millions of cash in several bank accounts as well as hundreds of sorts of livestock among others. We can recall the multimillion dollar house Jammeh bought in the posh Potomac area around the US capital Washington DC! Clearly Jammeh’s salary, allowances and per diems as president could not afford him this vast wealth!

Similarly, within 8 years in power, we have also noticed how Pres. Barrow built a huge mansion in Mankamang Kunda, while also acquiring a number of landed properties and other materials when he declared his assets before the IEC in 2021. In fact, currently Barrow is given state property illegally which must be returned to Gambians. Sooner or later. 

There are stories of some of his ministers building mansions and acquiring land and other kinds of properties in the Gambia, Senegal, Morocco and other parts of the world. Is their legal income enough to legitimately earn them these materials?

To answer that question is the reason therefore there should be a mandatory disclosure of assets when they leave public office. This will determine if their acquired wealth was legal or illegal so that at the end of the day society is protected from being defrauded. This is why mandatory disclosure is necessary. If the disclosure is subject to the discretion of the Anti-Corruption Commission, it has the tendency to be selective and the application of different standards for different people. This will potentially put some officials off the hook, hence rendering the entire exercise ineffective and undermining the fight against corruption.

Therefore, why would any reasonable person prevent such a mandatory measure by describing it as an intrusion into privacy?

By Madi Jorbateh