Gambia to kick out
he Gambia is the smallest country in mainland Africa but it has more non-governmental organisations (NGOs) than most countries in the African continent. Even the government of The Gambia is not in a position to tell the number of NGOs operational in the country, and therefore has decided to kick out those not operative.
In The Gambia, NGOs are formed almost on a daily basis and majority of them do not bother to register with the local government. And the irony is that most of these organisations are poorly structured and do not even present their audited accounts to the government. They continue to lobby funds in the name of vulnerable Gambian communities who are denied or given pittance or get nothing at all.
But The Gambia government deploys its intelligence agents to track down what it calls operators of "briefcase NGOs" some of who are non-Gambians. Gauging from the tone of the country's solicitor general, Dr Henry Carrol, it is apparent that soon the government will properly investigate briefcase NGOs.
Dr Carrol, a lawyer by profession, told an Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) consultative meeting on national human rights institutions in West Africa in Banjul that time is ripe for the activities and operations of briefcase NGOs to be investigated. He said, where necessary, those behind them should be prosecuted because they must not be allowed to dupe innocent Gambians and get away with it.
"It is clear that there exist some NGOs that are involved in dubious deals in the country, which is why the government should scrutinise them to ensure that they follow the right path," he said.
Consequently, Mr Carrol asked regional, continental and international institutions to thoroughly probe the reports of these NGOs with critical eyes because "they are hell bent on filing wrong and inaccurate reports."
In 2004, Gambian security raided offices of NGOs and discovered that some were involved in visa deals, money laundering and other crimes.
Mr Carrol also told the meeting that democracy is a work in progress and it is a process that requires constant adjustment and refinement. "We as Africans have to tailor our democratic experiment to meet the needs and yearnings of our people," he said, noting, "our democracy should be able to deliver concrete social needs for our people in terms of basic human requirements of food, clothing and shelter."
He said there was need to create the space for human self-actualisation through the protection of the inalienable rights of the people and one should be conscious of the need to build political and social consensus in the countries of the region so that dialogue and negotiation become tools for political bargaining rather than violence.
"If we got our politics right in terms of building stable and democratic societies, we would succeed in laying the foundation for economic prosperity in the sub-region, which will eventually make the work of ECOWAS in promoting economic cooperation and development much easier."
A commissioner of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Right, Sanji Masenono Monageng, said ECOWAS was an institution that was established through the political will of West African leaders. "It gives legal basis for action, and it is also an asset to tap on building a right-based society in West Africa", she said.
She said it is rather unfortunate for this important regional grouping to be challenged by decades of armed conflicts and wars mainly because the rights of people have not been protected.
"There is no development without peace and no right-based society can be built in a war-torn region," she said, asking ECOWAS member states to tackle the proliferation of small arms and light weapons by transforming the moratorium on small arms into a convention
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