In our last Monday 6 February editorial commentary, we did point-out that it is unfair on the part of the head of state to keep his former cabinet members in suspense even for a day without letting them know their fate in his new cabinet. Neither is the president fair to the tax payer in the way he treats what is of a legitimate public interest.

Moreover, while agreeing with Foroyaa newspaper that president Jammeh could have named his new cabinet earlier, as he’d two months after his re-election to do so, it was also our take that though a newly elected head of state or government often finds it difficult and controversial to fill-in all the vacancies in his cabinet, that however should not be the case for a re-elected head of state like president Jammeh, who had an option of continuity without reinventing any wheel.  

Today, we expound on the deleterious consequences of having vacancies in the cabinet. It appears that president Jammeh is not decided yet about the rest of the cabinet positions. He is not only doing his picks in piece meal, but also assigning a different portfolio to some former cabinet ministers.

This is manifested in case of Mr Abdou Kolley, who until president Jammeh dissolved his entire cabinet on Thursday 2 January, was the minister of Trade, Industry, Employment and Regional Integration.

However, according to a GRTS broadcast on Tuesday 7 January, Mr Kolley has bounced back to the new cabinet, but assigned to a different cabinet portfolio: Minister of Fisheries and Water Resources. Again, until the dissolving of the cabinet, Mr Lamin Kaba Bajo, who has not yet been called back into the new cabinet, was the holder of that position.

At the time of going to press, about nine ministerial positions have been occupied in a cabinet of 16 ministers. These include the following ministries: women’s affairs, interior, higher education, tourism, foreign affairs, trade, health, finance, and fisheries.  

This means there are some other key cabinet positions such as ministries of justice, basic education, information, local government, and youths and sports Again, these exclude other ministerial positions, including agriculture, works, defence, and energy, which have been moved to the president’s office some few years before the cabinet was dissolved. We will deliberate on this in our next issue.   
 
For now, we want to believe that president Jammeh needs not to be reminded that, yes he heads the executive branch of government, but the day-to-day implementation of national development policies and programmes is directly in the hands of the various cabinet ministries.
Vacancies in the cabinet could have several deleterious consequences to the policymaking as well as economic development of the country. These effects include inaction at the ministries, confusion among nonpolitical workers of  ministries, and decreased accountability of ministries to oversight bodies.  
In essence, without political leaders such as ministers, nonpolitical workers will have insufficient direction; they will make fewer policy decisions and they will undertake fewer rulemaking proceedings.
This does not say that non-political officials, or careerists as they can be called, do not have the necessary expertise to act or that they would be wandering in their offices perplexed. Rather, they undoubtedly have the requisite skill, but lack the needed direction that results from policy decisions at higher levels.
In some more controversial cases, it is often that they lack sufficient stature and statute to implement significant new programmes or regulations. Yes, there could be others such as permanent secretaries, but unlike ministers, they may have less access to the networks to get what they need from the State House.  
In this context, permanent secretaries may not know what to do or may be unmotivated to invest needed effort, which contributes to bureaucratic inactivity.

Besides, gaps in leadership at the ministries also ultimately undermine the accountability deriving from the checks and balances among the branches of government. The public’s trust in the administrative state rests, to a large degree, on ministry’s accountability to the National Assembly, as an oversight body.
 
At a time when we launched the newest national development blueprint, PAGE, following what appears to be the failure of the previous blueprint, PRSP, we need to have all the ministries well staffed in order to achieve the targets we set for ourselves. In fact, the incessant firing of public officials is no doubt a contributing factor to the failure of the previous national development blueprints and the overall poor performances of public institutions in Gambia .