Home CHRONICLES THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY (T.G.I.F): A Chronicle of Peps Guèye

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY (T.G.I.F): A Chronicle of Peps Guèye

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The Friday columns of Peps Guèye. It will be every weekend. Observation, reflection, analysis, opinion, deciphering social, economic and especially political facts, this is what our analyst Peps Guèye, will try to do in this way. A lucid, direct gaze that sometimes pours into the derision of a search for truth to the questions posed, you will be delivered through this production.

RUPTURE…
The urgency of cutting the umbilical cord and breaking with certain practices. The country gets bogged down, the results do not follow the ambitions declined. What is wrong? What are the brakes? What are the constraints to be lifted? A country ranked among the 25 poorest countries in the world, and ranked 170 th in terms of human development presents results that are far from honourable for a country that prides itself on being a champion of peace and political stability. More than 50 years of glorification of our famous terranga, of the dialogue of cultures and religions ended up giving birth to a system of unbearable trampling of society and a discredit of the Senegalese model. The country is no longer a dream. People are disappointed, disheartened and shame is taking hold of the conscience of the people as the scandals accumulate. Tourists have demystified the destination Senegal because finding elsewhere a more diverse and innovative offer and better security conditions. The policy of the outstretched hand of our leaders has ended to make our country a country of beggars, of dirty money laundering and of markers of robbers and death fetishers. I would hope that some of these people do not just come for the feminine because women are the last bulwark we have left in terms of dignity and work.

CUTTING THE UMBILICAL CORD IS AN ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY
Relations with the former colonial power no longer allow the country to get out of the rut. These win-win (ex colonizer) / lose (ex colonized) relationships are too unbalanced to allow us to emerge from underdevelopment. It is not a question of cutting off all relations with our western partners but rather of moving towards more balanced win/win relations. Okay, our successive leaders have all tried to lay the groundwork for our development, but almost all of them have maintained a status quo that makes our country a valet of western imperialism and a kind of poor province of these countries. It is time for our country to emancipate itself and to fly on its own. The birds fly in groups and fly high but the eagle flies alone and flies higher. Sometimes you are not surprised by your loneliness, it simply explains what kind you are and the degree of your altitude.” Our country must behave like this eagle. The pegging of our currency to a foreign currency has reinforced our poverty. The cost of living is unbearable for people with such low incomes. Our dependence on imports is impoverishing our economy and reducing its ability to produce locally and export. We must regain our political, economic and monetary sovereignty. We must beat our own currency and define the money supply necessary for our economic policy, our indispensable investments in human resources, in the promotion of local production and consumption, the emergence of local captains of industry and a strong local private sector and a dynamic middle class, to restore the credibility of our country and its international influence, to sustain our solidarities and establish lasting social cohesion. We will have our own information system to make our statistics reliable. It is time to give hope to an entire people who do not deserve such a situation.

BREAKING WITH THE EXPENSIVE LIFESTYLE OF THE STATE AND ITS DIFFERENT MEMBERS
In an underdeveloped over-indebted country, the administration cannot afford some largesse. Luxury tastes and lavish spending have no place in an administration that wants to be responsible and citizen. Political funds at the level of the country’s top three institutions can help to address a significant part of youth employment concerns. The means of the State must be directed towards the satisfaction of the needs of the populations and not used for the massification of a political party, the debauching of opponents or the reception of transhumants. Opacity in the management of public procurement, where overcharging, corruption, concussion, illegal taking of interest and other forms of influence are always legion, costs the community dearly. The reduction and control of the payroll of our administration is an absolute emergency. Meetings, conferences and seminars with their exorbitant share of losses and expenses add to the waste of a «nomenclatura» and a political microcosm that surely do not know the value of money because they have never created wealth by themselves.

BREAKING WITH “EVERYTHING FOR DAKAR”
Senegal is not just Dakar. Dakar needs to be pruned, redesigned, ventilated and cleaned up. It would have been wiser to create a scientific and technical center surrounded by a green lung (gardens, water, playgrounds and distraction) in place of the city of emergence to allow the city to breathe a little and the citizens to cultivate and aerate their mind. Some decisions are an absolute absurdity: 55 Billion for built a convention center whose profitability is hypothetical, more than 1000 billion for a regional express train of 37 km and how much for a city of emergence in a city that suffocates and that does not present any architectural coherence. The priorities are probably wrong. The government wants to impress hard-working populations who need their dignity back in a job more than meagre family grants. Ok there is the PDUC but our regions need a real new deal to develop: We need more 2 X 2-lane roads that connect all the big cities of the country than expensive highways, to build regional airports, (all major cities in Senegal deserve a modern airport), modernising agriculture and promoting agro-industry, creating an industrial fabric of SMEs/SMIs, a network of artisans, traders, liberal professions, educational structures, high-quality hotel receptives, modern sanitary facilities, new real estate programs to fix populations in the regions and create activity.. Putting the ploughs before the oxen and creating gas plants only continue to depress the people.

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BREAKING WITH A CERTAIN CULT OF PERSONNALITY
This rupture also begins with the abandonment of an unbearable cult of personality at the top of the state. How can the President’s Communications Advisors persist in letting messages like this go: the President offers 1 apartment and 10 million CFA francs to each winner? Or that the president takes charge of this individual. Okay, it’s quite normal to reward merit and help. However, in a civilized country the premiums to be paid to reward this merit or the support to be provided are planned and defined in advance by the ministry concerned in consultation with the federations and organizations concerned. This expenditure must also be in line with the potential of the country, which must in no way live beyond its means. By trying, in a political way, to pin the blame on the President, this action only discredits him and strengthens the unhealthy relationship we have with money. It is the people who help, not the president. A country that cannot adequately feed and care for its people, that does not ensure the availability of water and electricity resources, must ensure that its spending is rationalized. There are priorities to be met, and people do not like certain extravagances that are nothing but vanity. This situation makes the bed of activists and predators of all kinds. Another more engaging and mobilizing political marketing, which gives meaning and reconciles populations with the political thing is eagerly awaited. Political action must educate and sensitize the masses to bring about changes in behaviour that are essential for society to move forward.

BREAKING WITH RELIGIOUS POLITICAL RECUPERATION
The relationship between the spiritual and the temporal must also escape these attempts at political recuperation. Okay, we need to modernize the religious cities, but we need to modernize the whole of Senegal. Here, too, we are faced with a blatant lack of communication that wants to keep the masses in ignorance. This is unbearable obscurantism for the millions of young people and adults who are waiting to be formed and to integrate harmoniously into working life. It is a human tragedy to see people born, grow up in the family and reach their forties without knowing the experience of a job. We have to put people to work to divert them from certain informal and deviant practices. Religion must in no way be the opium of a people. We need more Djoulits (true believers) than Djoulikats (disbelieving priors) to boost our development.

BREAKING WITH POLITICAL PERSECUTION AND THE USE OF VOICE CARRIERS
The country’s social environment can no longer bear the existence of a political police that persecutes journalists and imprisons opponents. It is a failure of the State in its role as guarantor of democracy and the rule of law. By educating political action, the state can empower the country’s media and engage effectively with the opposition. This State must first ensure its own credibility to assert its leadership and give confidence to the people. It is up to the public authorities to set an example. It has everything at its disposal: the justice, the police, the gendarmerie and the financial means. So it can proactively bring order and discipline to the country. These behaviors only lead the population against a regime that is increasingly losing speed and benchmarks. What can be done for the country for individuals who only change their jacket to the sandstone of alternations and who have failed on all lines in their previous missions? This is a bad example to a people who urgently need positive benchmarks. It is sight-seeing pilotage that is harmful to our country. Here too, a break-up is desirable in order to establish a recruitment policy based on a vision, values and skills and not on the criteria for voting. Visual piloting does not produce results. In a self-respecting Republic, there is no room for patronage, nepotism, clanism and sectarianism in caste and class systems. The Republic must give priority to equal opportunities, the general interest and the national interest. This Republic must enable its citizens to innovate and constantly create value for the community.

Let us continue the citizen’s struggle to break with these practices of another age and to restore Senegal to its rightful place. Let us continue this fight to build, with Ousmane SONKO and the patriots who accompany him, a new citizenship in a new Republic that is more just, more united, more united and where progress will be shared by all. It’s time to put the country in motion: Stop the main predators of our public resources. Start repatriating the first misappropriated billions. Reform justice starting with the criminal statute of the head of state. Promote the values of work to the detriment of futility, tapalés and thiakhanes. Boost investments to create massive jobs, especially for young people. It’s time to set Africa in motion:. Curbing conflict and creating lasting peace…. Encourage innovation. Change is our life force, stagnation is our death knell.” David M. Ogilvy. Jummah Mubarak

       

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