2024-04-11 06:21:15
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Conceit or failure, will Alphonse Charles Wright give in?
A few days after the handover of service under protocol between the Keeper of the Seals, incoming Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Mr. Yaya Kairaba KABA, and the outgoing Mr. Alphonse Charles WRIGHT on Friday March 15, 2024, the administrative and financial aspects of this transfer of charges are slow to be finalized, whereas in principle, these procedures should have been completed on the same day to avoid any confusion in the continuity of the public service.
Why this delay in signing the Service Handover Report concerning the administrative and financial aspects?
This issue is becoming a serious concern and could create an unprecedented situation regarding the practices of handing over responsibilities within ministries in the Republic of Guinea. According to well-informed sources, the promise of signing the Minutes of handover was made to the outgoing Minister of Justice, for whom this act represents a republican exercise which is justified in respect of the principle of accountability in the management of public affairs, a principle dear to the President of the Republic, General Mamadi DOUMBOUYA. However, since Friday March 15, 2024, this process has been blocked without official explanation, while accusations are made in the press against the person who had initiated legal proceedings against the Administrative and Financial Directors of the ministries, including against the one who occupies these functions within his own department. It is important to emphasize that these allegations against the outgoing minister collapsed like a sandcastle in the face of the relentless reality of the facts. The spurious accusations relating to alleged acts of corruption and embezzlement linked to the renovation and extension of the central house in Conakry have already been brought to naught, and their author, Mamoudou Babila Keita, has been brought before the High Court. Communication Authority, according to the lawyers of the former Minister of State, Minister of Justice and Human Rights.
It is essential to note that the handover of service is an institutional ritual anchored in republican traditions and customs specific to public administration. In the history of our country, the handover within ministries has always placed emphasis on administrative and financial management between incoming and outgoing Ministers to ensure a thorough understanding of previous management. Currently, the situation remains blocked and the public is wondering about the underlying reasons for this stagnation, fueling a climate of suspicion which has no reason to exist, especially in this period of institutional rebuilding and rectification.
Lack of clarification of previous management
Based on the same sources, the Minutes of handover sanctioning the administrative and financial aspects of the previous management should have been established and signed by the two Ministers on the same day of the handover. Everything seems to indicate, according to our sources, that the related documents had not been prepared in due time, even though all the elements relating to the financial and administrative statements are available. At the end of the budget year, financial and administrative reports are transmitted to the competent ministries and archived for all purposes. It appears that this approach had not been respected, which prompted the outgoing Minister of Justice to request that the situation of his administrative and financial management be clarified in a handover report duly established for this purpose. His request was slow to find a satisfactory response from the competent authorities. Tired of this immobility and this inertia which cannot be justified with regard to the principles specific to administrative management, the outgoing Minister of Justice carefully officially entered by mail, as of Monday March 25, 2024, after several days of waiting, the Minister Secretary General of the Government, with a copy addressed to the President of the Republic, General Mamadi DOUMBOUYA, who is not aware of this situation, for information. The same copy was sent, among others, to Mr. Djiba DIAKITE, Minister Director of Cabinet at the Presidency of the Republic, although he was informed of the situation. The former Keeper of the Seals was surprised the next day, Tuesday March 26, 2024, by the unofficial receipt of a Procès-Verbal of handover which does not respond to any administrative, financial and legal formality, at his home by two emissaries of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. However, in his letter dated March 25, 2024, he had urgently recalled, after a week of fruitless waiting, respect for the principle of transparency and accountability, in accordance with the vision of his Leader, the President of the Republic, General Mamadi DOUMBOUYA, requesting clarification on the following points: – Personal expenses incurred under his signature in the areas of operation, investment and human resources;
– Expenses incurred by delegation of signature during periods of absence for reasons of illness and official missions by its Secretary General and its Financial and Administrative Affairs Officer;
– Finally, other expenses incurred by them during the interim period following the dissolution of the government.
Legitimate questions about financial transparency
Instead of clarifying its previous management, the Minutes submitted for its signature by the two aforementioned emissaries, does not allude to any element relating to its previous management (administrative and financial aspect), hence the following question : Why was his management deliberately concealed from his taking office as head of the Department of Justice and Human Rights on July 12, 2022 until the dissolution of the government on February 18, 2024?
This Minute was limited to resuming the administrative structure of the department, something which has nothing to do with the question of the handover of service (purely organic and institutional element). Other more legitimate questions challenge national and international public opinion, namely: Why the department in charge of financial matters did not deign to include in the Minutes of handover of service the financial situation initiated by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice and DAFF during the signing delegation period? Why so much reluctance to clarify the expenses incurred during the interim period following the dissolution of the government? At this precise stage, we are entitled to wonder: is this a case of proven incompetence or a Machiavellian plan being prepared?
More serious, instead of taking stock of the administrative and financial management of the outgoing minister, he is asked to sign the execution of the 2024 budget which is already in progress, even though he has not ordered any spent. Moreover, this 2024 budget is not part of the previous management of Mr. Charles WRIGHT, hence the latter’s refusal to sign a Minute which has nothing to do with his previous management and persistently demands the transparency on the status of its financial and administrative management. The argument according to which the outline indicated by the General Secretariat of the government, which does not allude to the previous period of management, is pure aberration. Will this approach, dictated and submitted to the Minister of Justice for signature as a contract of adhesion, prosper?
Refusal to sign the Minutes: a justified approach?
Will the Minutes of handover be signed by Mr. Alphonse Charles WRIGHT without the inventory of the administrative and financial aspects as required by the principle in this matter? Will the outgoing minister, who, in all responsibility and in the name of accountability, rejected the signing of the Minutes of handover without respecting the principle of clarification of his administrative and financial management, accept a flawed approach? ? Will he give in without respecting the formalities that a handover report must include?
Faced with what appears to be an attempt at deception or incompetence, will Charles Wright turn a blind eye?
Nothing is less sure.
Mohamed Lamine Sylla, In La Confidence
• ➡️The content of this article does not commit the editorial staff of MediaGuinee