Senegal’s President Macky Sall has embarked on reducing the ranks of senior presidential palace staff which had remained untouched in nearly 50 years.
The move stems from agitation by civil society organisations for the president to set example in eliminating double employment and corruption in high places.
At the presidential palace, these “double employments’’ were held by men and women who were hitherto called technical advisors to the president.
These technical advisors also doubled as board of directors of the presidential palace and received two salaries.
It had been argued that their salaries as board directors complemented the minimum salary they received as technical advisers.
Among the first batch to face the axe, are Abdou Aziz Mbaye, the President’s Information and Technology advisor.
The second and third victims are Mamadou Kassé and Abdourahmane Ndiaye, the president’s advisor on urbanisation and political affairs respectively.
All three of them have lost their jobs as board directors of the presidential palace and have been replaced accordingly, the daily L’As newspaper said.
President Sall has promised to carry on the process which he said will open more job opportunities for competent candidates and reduce unemployment.
What is not certain however, is that the civil society will not request government to end another age-old double employment of city mayors simultaneously holding the position of members of parliament which is a typical French system that was inherited from France and exists there to date.
