The President has made the announcement that salaries will increase by 20 per cent. This announcement may be appealing to the ear but, in economic and constitutional terms, it should alert our minds to the dangers of arbitrary rule.

A government which is operating under the ambit of a constitution and standards of best practice would have to honour the dictates of law and reasonable and justifiable policy. Under such a government twelve months become too long a period to leave a vacuum regarding the proper rewarding of the quantity and quality of work done. It is unreasonable and unjustifiable for a president just to announce out of the blue that there is 20 per cent salary increase without basing his decision on assessment of the cost of living of the salaries of the various income earners and the quantity and quality of work being done by them. What the country needed immediately after the birth of the second Republic was a salary and wages commission to assess the value of each work being done by public servants and the cost of living and then accord salary scale, according to the quantity and quality of work done. This should be followed by the annual assessment of inflationary trend of the basket of commodities and services, which are indispensable to daily survival and the increment of salaries to be proportionate , at least, to the inflationary trends.

Such a standard of best practice would be complimented by bonuses for exceptional performances and in the case of a better than expected financial returns. Here is a government maintaining one of the smallest civil services in the world, numbering nothing more than 16000 public servants, and who are on starvation wages for over a decade, only to jump out of the blue to give pittance as salary increase. (Foroyaa will give the exact number in subsequent issues). What will the messenger earning 500 dalasis get as 20 per cent salary increase if he is travelling from Barra to Banjul , daily, when the ferry tariffs have increased from 5 to 7 dalasi? How much would it benefit the same person when the prices of bread and many essential commodities have increased? 20 per cent salary increase to such a person only means an additional 100 dalasi on top of his or her salary. The person earning 1000 dalasi a month will receive an additional 200 dalasi. In short, most public employees will not get even 300 dalasi added to their salaries at a time when the prices of commodities and the tariffs of public utilities are skyrocketing.

The APRC regime is clearly out of tune with the realities of the Gambian people if they consider it a new-year's blessing to have salaries increased only by 20 per cent. What is needed is salary revamping and not salary adjustments by insignificant percentage points, which may be sweet to the ear of the farmer who earns starvation income annually. They may even blame a son for not increasing remittances, not knowing the insignificance of the increase. Instead of serving as a propaganda tool, the Gambians should be awakened to the fact that this "Alsamaday" government appears to be still walking in its sleep and cannot properly conduct research to conceptualise the degree of their suffering and take the desired measures to alleviate their poverty. It is therefore necessary for the Alnya Yelle deh and Al kuning deh movement to grow in 2008 to give the people hope of a better future under a government which shall reward them on the basis of the quantity and quality of their work. This is Foroyaa's New Year message to you.

Finally, it is important for the people to realise that it is not the prerogative of the president to increase salaries under the constitution. Even the president's salary is determined by an Act of the National Assembly. This is clearly stipulated under Section 68 of the constitution, which reads:

1. The President shall receive such salary and allowances as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly, and such salary and allowances shall not be altered to his or her disadvantage during his or her tenure of office.

2. The President shall be entitled to such pension and retirement benefits as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly and such pension and other benefits shall not be altered to his or her disadvantage after he or she has relinquished office:

Provided that no such pension or other retirement benefits shall be granted to a President who ceases to hold office in accordance with section 67.

The same goes for the vice president and Secretaries of state under section 72 subsection (3) of the constitution, which states that "The Vice-President and Secretaries of State shall be entitled to such remuneration, allowances and other incidents of office as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly."

Hence, it should be clear that the president has no power to increase his own salary not to mention the salaries of public servants. Only an Act of the National Assembly can give authority for salary increments.

This is clearly stipulated under section 151 of the constitution.

Subsection (1) states that, "No money shall be withdrawn from the Consolidated Fund Except- (a) to meet expenditure charged on that fund by this Constitution or an Act of the National Assembly; or (b) where the issue of that money has been authorised by an Appropriation Act, a Supplementary Appropriation Act or in accordance with subsection (4) of this section."

Subsection (6) adds that, "Where money is charged on the Consolidated Fund or any other public fund by law, it shall be paid out of that fund to the person or authority to whom it is due."

Hence, it should be as clear as noon day that the President is only authorised by the constitution to cause the estimates to be prepared and laid before the National Assembly for approval, which should be followed by the introduction of an Appropriation Bill by the Executive for the National Assembly to pass it. Once the Bill is passed, the president has no other mandate but to send it back to the National Assembly for reconsideration of his observations, which the National Assembly can overrule, or to assent and it then becomes the law which determines salary scales and allowances for all public servants. The Executive should respect these constitutional procedures and humble itself to the role of public trustee and not elevate itself to the position of a monarch with absolute power to make and enforce law.