Africa-Press – Gambia. The statements attributed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Gambians Abroad, Dr. Mamadou Tangara, during his recent appearance at the Mansa Kunda forum, seem to have opened an unprecedented can of worms on the level of indiscipline within the foreign service.
While many people agreed with some of the things that Dr. Tangara said about the many challenges facing our foreign service, but others also laid the blame of most of those problems squarely at his door step. As Foreign Affairs Minister and head of the diplomatic service, Dr. Tangara should have the final say as to who is posted to any diplomatic position. Therefore, the buck of whatever goes wrong in the foreign service stops at his desk and he cannot pass the blame onto anyone else. If he, for instance, allows President Adama Barrow to continue to use the foreign service as a dumping ground, with failed politicians being compensated with diplomatic postings, without any rudimentary training on diplomatic protocol, and he lacks the courage to tell his boss the truth, then he should accept responsibility for whatever goes wrong under his watch.
We have all been witnesses to several embarrassing incidents that had happened since the coming into power of the Barrow administration, and instead of taking appropriate disciplinary action against the culprits, many of them were simply recalled and redeployed to other places.
Examples of such embarrassing situations include an incident at our Moroccan embassy where the ambassador had physical confrontation with one of the staff members. Similar incidents happened in several other diplomatic missions including Russia, the United States, Guinea-Bissau. Cuba and Mauritania, and a majority of those involved were simply recalled and redeployed to other places, apparently because of their connection to the National People’s Party (NPP).
However, what seems to have flabbergasted everyone had been the unprecedented rebuttal of Dr. Tangara for the comments he made regarding the political appointees by no less a person than the Gambian ambassador to Turkey, Alkali Conteh. It came as a complete surprise to many Gambians that a serving diplomat would not only muster the courage to confront his boss in public, but even went on to accuse him of a “monumental leadership failure” on his part. He also went on to call Dr. Tangara’s attention to certain things that he should have done but failed to do; such as failing to take the necessary action to prevent many of those embarrassing incidents in those foreign missions before they happened. “The blame squarely falls on your head, and you must not run away from it,” Conteh said. He went on to remind Dr. Tangara of an incident that took place in the streets of New York City when he (Dr. Tangara) exchanged blows with a peaceful demonstrator while he was the Gambia’s permanent representative at the UN. He also blamed Dr. Tangara for several other things, including failure to call a meeting of the ambassadors/high commissioners to discuss pertinent issues.
Most Gambians are wondering what led to this apparent level of insubordination by Ambassador Conteh against his own boss. Is it a reflection of the type of governance environment prevailing in this country when members of the NPP have become so arrogant that they feel that they are untouchable and they can behave any how they like with no consequences?
It is indeed quite hard to see how both Minister Tangara and Ambassador Conteh would continue with business as usual in their respective positions. We would expect the government to take appropriate measures to instill some discipline within the foreign service because this type of relationship between the minister and his diplomats is quite untenable.
Source: Kerr Fatou Online Media House
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