The EF Small Centre has seen a State House letter dated 4 April 2025 requesting the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs to provide funds amounting to D3,625,957.80 being the per diem to be paid to security officers, the Secretary General and other officials to accompany the President’s mother to seek medical attention in Dakar, Senegal. We find this request quite troubling that highlights a number of issues that we raised in our advice to the President on April 7 to prioritize and adhere to good governance principles and provide accountable leadership in the interest of citizens’ welfare.
First, we express our total condemnation and rejection of this request as unlawful that constitutes abuse of power. This is precisely because the State has no legal obligation for the mother of the President because she is the mother of the president. The State’s obligation to the President extends only to his or her immediate family which is considered the First Family. The members of the First Family are the spouse and biological children under 18 years of the President. The State is not responsible for the rest of the extended family or relatives of the President beyond its responsibilities to the rest of the citizenry.
Secondly, this request did not state how many individuals are the beneficiaries, and for how many days. In the absence of such information, it begs the question about how the Office of the President arrived at the amount of more the 3.6 million dalasi. There is no vote or line in our national budget catering for the mother of the President. Hence, raising the question as to which budget vote or line is this allocation taken from?
Fourthly, EFSCRJ is deeply shocked and concerned that the President’s mother would travel overseas for medical attention at the expense of the State when the President had claimed that medical facilities in the Gambia are the cheapest and the best in the world. We therefore ask, why were local health facilities not utilized in the first place?
As an organization dedicated to transparency and accountability as the foundation of good governance and sustainable development, we are indeed hugely concerned about this development because of what it represents. Just like the President’s mother, ordinary Gambians who can afford it have to resort to traveling to Senegal or beyond to seek medical attention simply because of the poor health system in our country.
This indicates that since Independence, the various governments have failed to make the necessary investments in our health system yet top officials and their families would have the opportunity to seek healthcare abroad at the expense of the public. This is blatant injustice and discrimination that violates the fundamental rights of citizens to quality healthcare. The AU Abuja Declaration on healthcare in Africa, to which the Gambia is a party, stipulated in 2001 that African states should investment at least 15% of their national budget to the improvement of the health sector. The Gambia Government allocates at most only 9% of the national budget to health thereby failing its regional obligations to the people.
We therefore consider this request as evidence of bad governance, corruption and abuse of power that must be challenged. In this regard, we demand the following from the Office of the President:
- To return these funds if they were disbursed.
- To provide to Gambians the legal justifications for this medical trip.
- To provide the full financial details for this medical trip.
- To desist with immediate effect from engaging in the use of public funds for unjustified and ineligible expenses.
- To judiciously preserve and protect public wealth for the benefit of all Gambians.
We also demand the National Assembly,
- To perform their oversight function in summoning both the Chief of Staff and Minister of the Presidency and the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs to explain this request.
- To insist and ensure that at least 15% of the national budget is allocated to the health sector.
- To exercise maximum oversight on the Ministry of Health to curb corruption, inefficiency and poor service delivery in order to protect the rights of Gambians to quality healthcare services.