Anti-Corruption Commission
Building integrity in governance and accountability for every Dalasi.
Corruption does not only steal money. It steals the school that was not built, the medicine that was not purchased, the road that was not laid. It is the tax on every Gambian that goes unpublished in any budget and uncollected in any treasury. Corruption in The Gambia is not a marginal problem at the edges of an otherwise functioning system. It is embedded in the operating procedures, the incentive structures, and the expectations of large parts of the public sector. Budget allocations do not reach their intended purposes. Infrastructure projects cost far more than comparable projects elsewhere. Public services charge unofficial fees to users who are legally entitled to receive them for free. Government contracts go to suppliers with the right connections rather than the best value. Revenue collected by government officers never reaches the national treasury. Each of these failures individually represents a fiscal loss. Collectively, they represent a systematic diversion of national resources from the public interest to private benefit. And when citizens experience the public sector as a system that extracts from them rather than serves them, trust in government collapses, and the cycle of institutional deterioration accelerates. The National Builders Party will end this cycle, not with a campaign promise, but with an institution, a law, and the political will to apply consequences to powerful people when they violate the public trust.
A Gambia where public office is governed by the same simple principle in every institution: the resources that pass through your hands belong to the public, and your job is to use them for the public's benefit, nothing else. Where an independent Anti-Corruption Commission with real powers investigates and prosecutes corruption at every level without fear or favour. Where a civil service that is fairly paid has less reason and less tolerance for corrupt conduct. Where procurement is transparent, auditable, and competitive. Where whistleblowers are protected and celebrated rather than punished. Where the annual corruption report names institutions by performance, and the political cost of appearing at the bottom of it is real. That is the governance standard the National Builders Party will build and hold itself to.
The NBP will establish the Anti-Corruption Commission through a dedicated Anti-Corruption Act in the first session of the National Assembly, constitutionally entrenched as an independent state institution whose independence cannot be removed by any future government.
The Commission will be led by a Commissioner appointed through a transparent, merit-based Selection Panel process with National Assembly confirmation, serving a fixed non-renewable term of seven years. The ACC will operate with full legal autonomy and political independence, safeguarded explicitly by the Constitution, placing it alongside the Auditor General, the Ombudsman, and the Electoral Commission in a category of independent state institutions whose independence no future government can remove. Its budget will be a direct constitutional appropriation that cannot be reduced or withheld by the executive. An annual ACC report, published and presented to the National Assembly, will name institutions and individuals, rank government departments by transparency and accountability, and create the sustained public scrutiny that honest governance requires. The ACC will partner with international anti-corruption institutions including Transparency International, UNODC, and the Basel Institute on Governance.
The NBP will give the ACC the full range of investigative, prosecutorial, and asset recovery powers required to pursue corruption at every level, including the power to prosecute senior officials without requiring the consent of the Attorney General.
The ACC will have power to investigate any public official, private individual, or corporate entity in relation to suspected corruption, bribery, fraud, money laundering, or abuse of office. It may summon witnesses, compel testimony, enter and search premises with judicial authorisation, seize documents and digital records, freeze assets suspected of being corruption proceeds, and issue production orders to banks and telecommunications companies. Independent prosecutorial authority means that politically sensitive cases involving senior officials can be brought to court without political interference. A dedicated Asset Recovery Unit will trace and recover stolen assets, including assets moved to foreign jurisdictions, and direct recovered proceeds through a Recovered Assets Fund to specified public benefit purposes so that corruption's reversals are visible to every Gambian.
The NBP will enact a Whistleblower Protection Act making it a criminal offence to threaten, harm, dismiss, or discriminate against any person who reports corruption in good faith, and will launch a national corruption reporting platform accessible by phone, website, and SMS.
Whistleblowers are the most powerful tool in any anti-corruption system, and the most consistently failed by governments that claim to want accountability. The Whistleblower Protection Act will provide legal protection to all persons who report suspected corruption to the ACC, covering protection from dismissal, demotion, harassment, and any adverse employment action. Anonymous reporting will be enabled through the national corruption reporting platform so that those who fear identification can still contribute. An independent Whistleblower Protection Review Panel, separate from the ACC, will handle complaints from persons who believe they have suffered retaliation, with the power to order reinstatement, compensation, and criminal referral of those who retaliate.
The NBP will implement comprehensive civil service pay reform, because a public servant who cannot meet their family's basic needs on their government salary is a public servant who faces a daily choice the government should not be forcing them to make.
A Civil Service Pay Reform Commission, established in Year 1, will evaluate and adjust all salary scales to reflect the actual cost of living, implementing a tiered wage system based on qualifications, performance, and responsibility. Regular, on-time payment of wages and allowances will be a non-negotiable operational standard. Performance-based bonuses and career advancement incentives will reward integrity and long-term public service. The connection between fair compensation and reduced corruption is documented in every successful anti-corruption reform programme in the world. The NBP will address the structural financial vulnerability that currently makes corruption a rational economic choice for too many public servants.
The NBP will introduce mandatory, publicly accessible asset declarations for all senior public officials and will establish a robust conflict of interest framework that prevents officials from using public positions for personal financial benefit.
All ministers, permanent secretaries, directors general, senior judicial officers, members of the National Assembly, heads of state-owned enterprises, and all ACC and law enforcement officials will be required to file comprehensive asset declarations covering all personal and family assets, income sources, business interests, and liabilities on appointment and annually thereafter. Declarations will be published on a national digital platform accessible to every Gambian and every journalist. Failure to declare, or false declaration, will be a criminal offence. A Conflict of Interest Code will prohibit officials from participating in procurement or regulatory decisions that affect their personal or family financial interests, with mandatory recusal and public disclosure requirements.
The NBP will digitise and open the entire government procurement system, making every tender, every bid, every evaluation, and every contract award publicly accessible in real time, because procurement secrecy is where corruption lives.
A national e-procurement platform will require all government contracts above a defined threshold to be tendered publicly, with bid documents, evaluation criteria, all submitted bids, evaluation scores, and the final award decision published online within defined timelines. A Procurement Appeals Mechanism will give unsuccessful bidders a formal, independent route to challenge decisions they believe were improper. A blacklist of suppliers convicted of corruption or fraud in government contracts will be maintained and accessible to all procuring entities. Emergency procurement, the most corruption-prone category, will be subject to mandatory post-award publication and ACC notification for all contracts above a defined value. Procurement officers who are found to have manipulated processes will face criminal prosecution, not administrative sanction.
The NBP will prioritise integrity reforms in the institutions historically most vulnerable to corruption: the Gambia Revenue Authority, Customs and Excise, NAWEC, and the Lands Registry.
The Gambia Revenue Authority will strengthen digital tax tracking, eliminate cash-based collection systems, introduce automated records, and rotate key staff to reduce fraud rings. Customs and Excise will introduce digital import and export declaration processes, install surveillance systems at all ports of entry, and partner with international agencies to monitor smuggling and bribery. NAWEC will undergo a forensic audit of operations, billing systems, and procurement contracts, followed by implementation of transparent vendor management and billing systems. The Lands Registry will be digitalised, with all transactions recorded in a publicly searchable register, eliminating the opacity that has allowed corrupt transfers and double registration. All high-risk institutions will be subject to mandatory ACC integrity assessments every two years.
The National Builders Party will enact a Freedom of Information Act giving every Gambian the legal right to request and receive government information, and will invest in the civic education that builds the culture of accountability from the ground up.
A Freedom of Information Act, modelled on international best practice and enacted in Year 1, will establish the legal right of every Gambian to request any government document or data, with defined response timelines and an independent Information Commissioner to adjudicate disputes. Proactive publication obligations will require all government ministries and agencies to publish budgets, expenditure reports, contracts, and meeting records without being asked. A national anti-corruption civic education programme embedded in the New National Standard curriculum from secondary school will build the demand for accountability that sustains anti-corruption institutions beyond any single government term. Public servants who demonstrate exemplary integrity will be publicly recognised through an annual National Integrity Award.
For Every Taxpayer
Every Dalasi you pay in tax is a Dalasi that belongs to the public and should be used for the public's benefit. When corruption diverts that money, you pay twice: once in tax and once in the school, the hospital, or the road that never gets built. An independent ACC with real powers, published asset declarations, open procurement, and a Freedom of Information Act mean that the connection between your tax and your public services is visible, auditable, and enforceable. Your money will be accounted for.
For Young Gambians
A Gambia where merit determines outcomes in the public sector is a Gambia where your qualifications and your effort are worth investing in. When public sector jobs go to the qualified and public contracts go to the competitive, a young Gambian with skills has a real stake in the formal economy. The civic education curriculum will also equip you to demand accountability from the institutions that govern your life, making you not just a beneficiary of this reform but an active enforcer of it.
For Every Family
Corruption is not an abstraction. It is the health center that was funded but never built. The scholarship that was allocated but given to someone's cousin. The water supply project that was contracted but delivered at a fraction of the quality the money paid for. The Anti-Corruption Commission that the National Builders Party builds will pursue every one of these failures, recover the assets where possible, and direct recovered funds to the public benefit. A government that governs with integrity governs better. Every family in The Gambia will feel that difference.
The New National Standard in governance is this: public office is a trust, not an opportunity. The resources that pass through the hands of any public official belong to the Gambian people, and the only legitimate use of those resources is the benefit of the Gambian people. Under the National Builders Party, an independent Anti-Corruption Commission will investigate and prosecute corruption at every level without fear or favour. Asset declarations will be filed and published annually by every senior official. Procurement will be conducted in the open, with every bid and every award publicly visible. Whistleblowers will be protected by law. The Freedom of Information Act will give every Gambian the right to see what their government is doing with their money. High-risk institutions will be forensically audited and reformed. And a civil service that is fairly paid will have less reason and less tolerance for corrupt conduct. The National Builders Party will hold itself to this standard. And it will hold every institution it governs to the same standard, without exception and without favour.
Corruption does not only steal money. It steals the school that was not built, the medicine that was not purchased, the road that was not laid. The National Builders Party will build the institutions, enact the laws, and hold the line that ensures every Dalasi of public money serves the public it belongs to.
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