The Edward Francis Small Centre has declared 2025 the Year of Transparency and Accountability throughout the Gambia. We wish to promote these principles as standard mechanisms to ensure effective legal, policy, and institutional frameworks for protecting and promoting human rights in the Gambia. Transparency is the first indispensable ingredient to obtaining Accountability. T&A generates public trust and establishes credibility in the Government, facilitating popular participation and adherence to the rule of law.
We have made this decision, realizing that the missing link in the governance and development of this country has always been the absence of or weak transparency and accountability systems, processes, tools, and practices. Consequently, public resources’ judicious management and spending to generate sustainable development has been poor. It is for this reason that after gathering and spending billions in taxes, loans, and grants, at the same time, poverty and deprivation remain prevalent in the country.
After sixty years of independence, the Gambia remains a highly indebted country with a highly impoverished and highly taxed population and limited opportunities available. Meanwhile, immense resources are spent on public institutions’ upkeep and public officials’ welfare rather than on the people. Yet, the performance and delivery of public officials leave much to be desired. At the same time, necessary checks and balances are either absent or blatantly disregarded, leading to further misuse of public resources.
Public institutions and officials do not feel obliged to communicate on time and in full with total honesty to citizens. Often, official statements are either inadequate, misleading, stale, or released only after a public outcry. Consequently, the incidence of corruption, inefficiency, abuse of power, and disregard for the rule of law in public office continue to be endemic, leading to violations of human rights.
As an organization created to ensure democracy and good governance in the Gambia, we figured that without transparency and Accountability, the dream of a human rights-friendly, prosperous, and peaceful Gambia would be unattainable.
Our call for transparency and Accountability is based on the Constitution and domestic and international laws. In Chapter 20 of the Constitution, the Directive Principles of State Policy provide in Section 214(5) that,
“The Government, with due regard to the principles of an open and democratic society, shall foster accountability and transparency at all levels of government.”
This constitutional principle and policy are instrumental in making the Government relevant, trustworthy, and responsive, without which democratic governance and protection of human rights would be meaningless.
Furthermore, the Access to Information Act 2021 requires that public institutions proactively disclose necessary information to the public under Article 7(1),
“Every public body shall publish in such manner as may be prescribed the following information as produced by or in relation to that body within 30 days of the information being generated or received by that body.”
Article 4(3) of the Act states, “No information holder or information officer shall be liable for releasing information in good faith and in accordance with this Act.”
This provision seeks to encourage and protect information officers to provide information without fear of reprisal. Similarly, the Anti-Corruption Act 2023 protects both whistleblowers and information officers under Article 67. The creation of the Anti-Corruption Act is a fulfillment of the Gambia’s international obligation under the UN Convention against Corruption, which the Gambia ratified in 2014. Article 33 of the Convention provides that,
“Each State Party shall consider incorporating into its domestic legal system appropriate measures to provide protection against any unjustified treatment for any person who reports in good faith and on reasonable grounds to the competent authorities any facts concerning offences established in accordance with this Convention.”
The essence of these domestic and international laws, in addition to the 1997 Constitution, is that good governance and sustainable development cannot exist without transparency and Accountability. Transparency and Accountability require adherence to the rule of law, access to information, protection of whistleblowers, and proactive disclosure of information by public institutions.
As we enter 2025, we call on all public institutions and officials at both central and local levels to proactively disclose information and protect information officers and whistleblowers in line with the Gambian’s domestic and international legal obligations. For that matter, to make 2025 a meaningful Year of Transparency and Accountability, we urge,
- Public institutions and officials must abide by and enforce the law fully and effectively.
- The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Inspector General must impartially and thoroughly enforce all laws, especially those against corruption and other public-sector crimes.
- Public officials become whistleblowers when they notice wrongdoing of any kind.
- Heads of public institutions are not to punish or penalize officials who have blown the whistle on wrongdoing in their institutions.
- Citizens should refrain from any acts of bribery and corruption and report wherever they notice such malpractices happening.
Transparency and Accountability are in your interest regardless of your title or place within the Government and society. T&A protects rights, saves lives, and provides opportunities. Without T&A, the rights and opportunities that are lost or damaged may be your own.
