Banjul,The Gambia Journal
Timmerman wrote that in 1998, for example, Berkman was sent to “the tiny West African country of Gambia to investigate a $12.3 million project aimed at helping farmers.
Burning shoe leather in the capital, Banjul , he visited suppliers who had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment they never sold, and confronted government officials who tacitly admitted to the kickback scheme. “
Although the project was supposed to provide direct assistance to farmers, he found that World Bank project managers had approved the disbursement of “huge sums” on “frivolous and illegible procurement.”
The project billed the Bank for hundreds of thousands of dollars of office furniture, vehicles, lodging, fencing, air conditioners and household furnishings, for which there was little accounting and no direct use by those the project was intended to benefit.
In all, Berkman found $8 million of questionable purchases — 65 percent of the entire project total — while few farmers received much assistance.
He called the Gambia program “death by a thousand cuts” because of the sheer number of schemes used successfully to siphon funds from the Bank into the pockets of government officials and their cronies. This did not catch us by any surprise, it was indeed “death by a thousand cuts.” It is the prospect of milking projects by using a vast array of corruptible measures that lies beneath President Jammeh’s love for projects, it appears. Under his rule the country has enjoyed impressive advancement in the area of infrastructure development. But the lack of proper prioritization, sequencing and implementation of development projects leaves official intentions questionable in the eyes of many. Officials seem to be more interested in self-enrichment potentials of projects than their growth and developmental impact.
The government has been working with several development partners. Apart from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the country's largest development partners are the IMF, the European Union, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Kingdom (DFID), and the different United Nations agencies. The government's latest Round Table with donor the partners was held in November 2007 in Geneva .
The World Bank itself claims that, through the International Development Association (IDA), it is helping The Gambia “to establish a sound macroeconomic and sectoral environment conducive to economic growth, and to develop the economic and social infrastructure and human resources.” A look at the results of Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for FY03–05 which was approved in March 2003 by the Bank's Board of Executive Directors will help illustrate the scale of project failures in the country. The broad aim of that particular intervention was to the support IDA to help government meet its PRSP priorities.
A new CAS for the period 2008-2011 as prepared and approved by the Board at the end of 2007. The Third Education Project, Phase 2, was approved in June 2006, and the Community-Driven Development project was approved in August 2006. None of these approved projects met their objectives in time and about half of them never even got off the ground. As of September 2007, IDA had approved 31 projects for The Gambia totaling about US$296 million equivalent. The current portfolio consists of five projects totaling US$52.9 million equivalent: (a) Capacity Building for Economic Management, (b) Gateway, (c) Africa Emergency Locust, (d) Third Education, Phase 2, and (e) Community-Driven Development. Apart from the project vehicles that parade the streets of Banjul , Serrekunda, Soma and Base, nothing can be seen to have come out of Capacity Building for Economic Management, CBEM, apart from the installation of new computer programs at the Central Bank of The Gambia. The objectives of the project were to promote the independence of the bank, improve the transparency accountability of its transactions and make it less vulnerable to political interference. The Gateway project has bee at a standstill since its official launching. As for the Africa Emergency Locust, AELP, it was conjured up in the heat of the exaggerated threat of locust invasion in mid 2004. Though swarms of locusts were seen in some parts of Senegal and a number of Sahelian countries, they never really came into The Gambia. Despite this, AELP project officials are supposed to be distributing “compensation” to supposed victims. The Community-Driven Development project is yet to be launched though funds for kit have long been disbursed and though the Third Education, Phase 2, has been the least delayed in implementation, it is yet to reach even a third of its implementation.
The World Bank is also engaged in a number of studies it is sponsoring, including the current Analytical work in FY08-09 : (a) Civil service reform and capacity assessment, (b) Poverty assessment, (c) Investment climate assessment, and (d) Country Financial Accountability Assessment.
Based on previous poor performance of projects in the Gambia , the International Finance Corporation (IFC) strategy is based on a selective approach focused on (i) enhancing the capacity of local financial institutions to improve the access to finance of their existing and potential SME clients; (ii) supporting capacity building program for SMEs; and (iii) improving investment climate. In this connection, PEP Africa and the Gambian Chamber of Commerce have jointly developed a training program for SME clients of a local start-up microfinance institution and the first round of participants to the training program graduated beginning of September 2007. The graduates of the course still sit idle without the necessary help to do anything meaningful. A potential financing for the concerned microfinance institution is said to be under consideration, but based on experiences, few think it will ever go beyond training workshops and seminars. In addition, IFC is in the process of implementing an electronic market place to facilitate the access of small and medium size hotels to their clients internationally. Though a private sector operator has already been identified, selected and trained and though it was supposed to have started since October of 2007, nothing has been heard of the project since. Participating hotels were supposed to have benefited from general business capacity building assistance through SME EDI, but those responsible seem to have forgotten about it.
I had previously thought that the cause of all these failures was the shortcomings and failures of Gambian government administration. Just about a month ago, speaking on the dismissal performance rate on the implementation of the current African Development Bank (ADB) portfolio, Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs Bala Gaye lamented that it “has been below expectation.” He added that the identified factor responsible for the unsatisfactory disbursement rate is the inflexibility and inadequate knowledge of the Bank’s rules and regulations. As a result, he added, the project Implementation Unit officials are ill prepared to effectively and efficiently utilize project funds on a timely basis. He made this observation at the opening of the weeklong 2008 ADB project implementation workshop held in June 2008 at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.
In a speech read on his behalf by Mr. Secka, Permanent Secretary at the Department of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, Bala Gaye noted that there are also many other factors responsible for the ongoing low disbursement rate. These factors, he said, include weak human and technical capacity at the project implementation level which affects the absorptive capacity to utilize funds; rapid staff turn over; difficulty in comprehending Bank’s rules and regulations; delay in turning over management reports; failure to audit projects and submit report on time.
In the view of the Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, this has led to sub-optimal achievement of the ADB project’s development objectives. He emphasized that until all these factors causing low performance are addressed, there will be a slowdown in achieving our national socio-economic programs as well as attracting additional funding from the Bank and other development partners.
However, analysts believe that the continued low performance of the project may lead to reduction in the performance rating of the country’s portfolio of projects depending on the amount and the projects in the portfolio. Analyst also expressed concern that our national development objectives will be frustrated if implementation is below average and it may equally continue to weigh negatively on the country’s performance.
The same applies for World Ban projects but reading Mr. Timmerman’s article and his reference to Mr. Berkman’s accounts have opened my eyes wider to also consider what looks like endemic corruption within the World Bank itself.
