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Senegal President cuts number of palace staff
US President Barack Obama talks with Senegal President Macky Sall (right) on June 27, 2013 in Dakar. The Senegalese President has embarked on reducing the ranks of senior presidential palace staff which had remained untouched for nearly 50 years. PHOTO | JIM WATSON |
What you need to know:
- Civil society organisations had called for the president to set an example in eliminating double employment and corruption in high places.
- Among those axed are Abdou Aziz Mbaye, the President’s Information and Technology advisor, Mamadou Kassé and Abdourahmane Ndiaye, the president’s advisor on urbanisation and political affairs respectively.
- President Sall promised to carry on the process which he said will open more job opportunities for competent candidates and reduce unemployment.
DAKAR, Monday
Senegal’s President Macky Sall has embarked on reducing the ranks of senior presidential palace staff which had remained untouched in nearly 50 years.
The move stems from agitation by civil society organisations for the president to set example in eliminating double employment and corruption in high places.
At the presidential palace, these “double employments’’ were held by men and women who were hitherto called technical advisors to the president.
These technical advisors also doubled as board of directors of the presidential palace and received two salaries.
It had been argued that their salaries as board directors complemented the minimum salary they received as technical advisers.
Among the first batch to face the axe, are Abdou Aziz Mbaye, the President’s Information and Technology advisor.
The second and third victims are Mamadou Kassé and Abdourahmane Ndiaye, the president’s advisor on urbanisation and political affairs respectively.
All three of them have lost their jobs as board directors of the presidential palace and have been replace accordingly, the daily L’As newspaper said.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Meanwhile, President Sall has promised to carry on the process which he said will open more job opportunities for competent candidates and reduce unemployment.
What is not certain however, is that the civil society will not request government to end another age-old double employment of city mayors simultaneously holding the position of members of parliament.
This is a typical French system that was inherited from France and exists there to date.
MIGRATION
Meanwhile, President Sall has said European funds to tackle African migration is not sufficient.
It was one of several measures European and African leaders agreed to reduce the flow of people into Europe.
President Sall, who currently heads the West African regional group Ecowas, told journalists on the sidelines of the summit earlier this month that the money pledged was “not enough for the whole of Africa”.
Later, he said he was pleased with the trust fund, but said he would like to see it “more generously financed”.
The $1.9bn fund is in addition to the $20bn the EU already spends on development assistance in Africa every year.
