Mr. Musa Saihou Mbenga, former Secretary of State for Agriculture under the Jammeh administration, has been appointed by the United Nations’ Food an Agricultural Organization (FAO) as the FAO Representative to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), The Point is reliably informed. Mr. Mbenga is scheduled to leave Banjul on 23rd September for Rome, Italy where the FAO is headquartered, for briefing before assuming his new post in Kinshasa.

Mr. Mbenga served as Executive Secretary of the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, CILSS, after his tenure with the Gambia government. He returned in June, 2007, from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso where he served as Executive Secretary of CILSS.

Mr. Mbenga was appointed by the 13th Conference of Heads of State of CILLS meeting in Bamako, Republic of Mali, back in 2000. He was Executive Secretary between 2000 and 2007, completing two consecutive terms of three years each.

Before his stint with CILSS, Mr. Mbenga served as a Secretary of State for Agriculture between 1997 and 1999 in the first government of the Second Republic of President Jammeh. Prior to that, he was the Minister of Agriculture & Natural Resources between 1994 and 1997 on account of the transition government.

Mr. Mbenga began his career in the Department of Agriculture and particularly the Agricultural Research Department where he rose through the ranks until arriving at the level of Assistant Director and head of the Sapu agricultural research station before his appointment as a minister.

Mr. Mbenga has a Master’s degree in plant breeding and biometry from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY and bachelor’s degree from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

Mr. Mbenga is married and has four children.