In Guinea, the ministerial departments have been watching for more than ten years, helplessly but with the blessing of the Presidents, the birth of parallel structures to the detriment of State structures.
In the government, Ministers are certainly appointed with attributions.
But Alpha Condé and Mamady Doumbouya have always taken away most of the prerogatives from the Ministers to create parallel structures that they entrust to members of their community and close relatives. Just to allow relatives to gobble up the Guinean taxpayer’s money with complete impunity. A license to steal in a way.
It exists in all ministerial departments, but let’s focus on two of them.
Current events require that first of all, it is the Road Management Agency with its National Road Observatory. In place of the national road maintenance department of the Ministry of Public Works created for the needs of the cause.
AGEROUTE, an almost family structure which allows the parents and relatives of the head of the junta to line their pockets to the detriment of the Guinean taxpayer.
With the creation of AGEROUTE, many executives and citizens are wondering what the purpose of the Ministry of Public Works and the National Directorate of Road Maintenance, housed in the same Ministry, is now.
All the funds, hundreds of billions, are taken from the Ministry that is normally responsible for carrying out public works and entrusted to a parallel structure run by the community and whose members are mainly close relatives.
Faced with this situation, on the ground, the results are visible. In this vein, one wonders whether Ageroute is seeing the damage to the roads in order to take the necessary steps to repair them.
This thing called AGEROUTE does not even know the road signs around damaged areas of roads, bridges, much less repair work.
Yet God alone knows how many billions are made available to AGEROUTE to carry out the work mentioned above.
What can we say except that roads constitute a vector of development if priority is given to the construction and rehabilitation of modern, quality road infrastructure across the country.
Another parallel structure in place of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization and the one in charge of the environment and sustainable development, is the National Agency for the Management of Emergencies and Humanitarian Disasters.
As a reminder, within the ministerial departments mentioned above, there are departments in charge of disasters and humanitarian aid which have demonstrated their expertise in the field in the past with competent, honest and upright executives.
Only here with this National Agency for the Management of Humanitarian Emergencies and Disasters (ANGUCH), it was very present in the Media at the time of the crisis linked to the explosion of the central hydrocarbon depot of Coronthie to collect donations and during the last natural disasters of the rainy season last year.
With a heavy past. The victims of Coronthie grouped within an association continue to ask in vain for donations from all over the world to come to their aid.
Because of the head of this structure who is very close to Mamady Doumbouya, the union delegate for the victims of Coronthie, Mr. Touré, was arrested and thrown in prison to discourage all those who claim donations intended for the victims.
It took a general mobilization of the populations of the Kaloum peninsula for the union delegate to be quickly released from prison, tried and given a suspended sentence, then released.
But as a popular saying teaches us, you can’t change your nature.
With the ongoing floods throughout the country, AGEROUTE and ANGUICH have not obtained funds from the Guinean taxpayer in the name of the damaged roads and the victims.
As a result of this situation, the two structures which have supplanted entire Ministries have remained silent, perhaps waiting for billions to cover their own pockets to the detriment of the roads and the victims.
That’s not all. In place of the central management of the road police of the Ministry of Security and Civil Protection, there is also the Guinean Road Safety Agency (AGUISER).
To put it in a nutshell, the state of Guinean roads is most lamentable.
Road safety is far from being a national priority for the military junta in power for three years. Traffic accidents are no longer countable on Guinea’s roads. Who can say how many families are in mourning because of bad roads this year 2024?
What can be said about the victims of the month of July and those of this current month of August, except that they are left to the fate of nature. Although they have lost everything and find themselves in a total denouement. Poor Guinea.
Ousmane CISSE
2024-08-29 11:10:41