The passing of the former Minister of Finance and Budget, Mamadou Moustapha Ba, is one of those blows of life that shakes one to the core, leaving you speechless. A manager of this stature helped as best he can through his skills, talent, commitment and generosity, in the effort to give our country’s public finances their letters of nobility. This superintendent of our finances was able to pull out all the stops and contribute to building a solid, credible, responsible and above all transparent administration of our figures and accounts. Out of respect for all the senior officials of this country who, year after year and from generation to generation, serve Senegal with dignity in our financial departments, in the Defense and Security Forces or in the Judiciary, I refrain from taking an interest in the far-fetched and irresponsible accusations that have blackened the ledgers of Senegal’s accounts.

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Moustapha Ba was a discreet executive, a man of few words, but with a useful verb. In the aftermath of his disappearance, his exchanges with MPs during the budget marathons he led, say a lot about an approach marked by pedagogy, understanding and the quest for consensus. On all public issues, he sought to provide everyone, from the initiated to the layman, including the average citizen, with comprehensive answers to have a good understanding of the issues and have a reasoned reading of the financial management of our country. In the face of adversity and hostility, he always knew how to remain courteous and humble, deconstructing the false with the arguments of reason and by exposing the truth of the figures. Public affairs, especially with regard to financial issues, are often draped in a veil of complexity that gives free rein to fallacious interpretations that can be the breeding ground for disinformation.

Moustapha Ba knew, with such a state of affairs, how to position himself as an educator, even an instructor, to unravel the knots of serious financial issues and make them accessible to all. He did this with an open-door policy and an accessibility that dictates the urbanity of good men. Journalists, political leaders, union officials, partners of Senegal, a whole range of actors in our public life, found in him a credible interlocutor, an attentive ear and a government official who knew how to make the right decisions to resolve crucial situations or propose steps to its leaders to obtain better solutions.

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I will never stop saying it, in this country, there is a vicious and pernicious agenda to destroy everything that is greater than oneself. By leveling down, we would like to believe, with Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko as the conductor of this infamous dynamic, that there is no deserving Senegalese, all the great successes would be impostures, stains would be dragged on the mantle of honourability pf any senior executive or any exceptional personality.

This dynamic, with the strength of social networks, is maintained by a pack of dogs who, for the most part, in the excitement of youth and boosted by the passion of empty barrels, actively engage in revisionism and deconstruction of all symbols. No one is worth anything, all successes are tainted with doubt, all breakthroughs are interpreted through the prism of simplistic shortcuts that are always far from reality. When in a society, some would like to make people believe that no one is worth anything and that there are crimes behind every work, we can understand the despair of youth to adulate any braggart without questioning his career to make him a hero. The game is simple, knowledge and skills do not count. You just have to have a mouth that carries, occupy the space, dirty, like common seagulls, every beautiful skull under the sun and set yourself up, through the void left by the absence of remarkable identities, as king. We cannot be surprised by the triumph of the simpletons! Under the weight of the certainties of a society where screaming hyenas reign, a decor of stupidity where no one can emerge unscathed settles.

In memory of the high state commissioner and exceptional man that was Mamadou Moustapha, Senegalese people, and not the least, gave testimonies of pure sincerity in order to reveal the qualities of a man who made service to Senegal the work of his life. General Mbaye Cissé, Baïdy Agne, Cheikh Yérim Seck, Pathé Mbodj, many of them testified to the integrity, rectitude, professionalism and probity of Bosquier. Their orations join the requiems of many anonymous people who will have seen Moustapha Ba impact their life or career in a positive way, without claiming any credit for it. The child of the troop that he was will surely have erected in him the idea of ​​serving as a viaticum and of making his help a disinterested and sincere promise.

This son of Nioro leaves Senegal a legacy of structuring projects implemented within the framework of the Emerging Senegal Plan (PSE) to which he helped, with the late Pierre Ndiaye, to give his whole soul. This program will have forever changed the face of this country, although the ambient revisionism of a horde of nihilists would not want to hear that.

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He is a proud child of this country, a product of one of the jewels of our national education, who will have shown that there is nobility in serving one’s country. All the people who have met and practiced it are marked forever. Let us hope that our authorities will have the greatness and intelligence to mark his name in gold letters on one of our public buildings so that his memory will serve as a lucid compass in a country in need of heroes. This is the least honour that Senegal should be able to give him. It is said that to bury certain parts of history, we let time tear away men and we start a new writing of it. As long as breath allows, there will be people to remind us that there are great Senegalese who have served and made Senegal what it is.

By Serigne Saliou DIAGNE / saliou.diagne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH