Recent debates about the hopelessness of the economic situation of blacks in general and Africans in particular has prompted me to write about some of my own observations about our country, The Gambia. A few days back it was reported in the local papers that the prospects of The Gambia having a bumper tourist season this year seem particularly good. This view was given further credence when it was reported, a few days back, that The Gambia won the award for the best futures stand at the world’s second largest tourism trade fare. As we all know, tourism has and still plays a major role in our economy. It is said to be the second largest contributor to our GDP and that it employs over 10,000 Gambians. It is also said that tens of thousands others benefit directly or indirectly from it. What is however disturbing is that much we are not getting our fair share of the revenues from tourism? Most of the money generated within the industry does not even get us. Some justify this by pointing to our lack of Gambian ownership of the major hotels, poor quality of product, over dependence on foreign tour operators etc, etc. As I don’t much about the industry, I am inclined to accept these explanations, as they seem very plausible. The question one is tempted to ask is, can we do much about it all or do we just accept the status quo. In recent years Gambia has been attracting all sorts of tourists to the country. One breed however seem to be growing very fast and this what they call the eco-tourists. The number of resorts along the banks of the river Gambian is on the increase and so is the need for river transport. It is however very unfortunate that this is almost totally dominated by foreigners. One cannot help but notice that the majority of the dozens of boats moored at Denton Bridge are of the local “Serer” type. It is however lamentable that almost all of them are owned and operated by foreigners. They organize boat trips ranging from dolphin watching, bird watching, sport fishing etc, etc. For such trips their charges can be as high as D500.00 per person for trips lasting only a few hours at a time. Those who specialize in taking tourists for sport fishing can also be seen selling their catch of the day to restaurant owners for additional profit. Some tell their clients that the fishes are given to needy families to help them cope with the poverty in the country when we all know that that is not the case. There are others who own and rent out jet skies to tourists for as much as D150.00 an hour! How much of this goes to Gambians I keep asking myself. Perhaps some of you may have an idea. Recently I approached a very respectable and highly experienced banker for advise about what one needed to do to qualify for a substantial loan to go into fishing. He first asked me whether I was considering venturing into that line of business and I replied that I was dead serious about it. What followed left me totally bewildered. He told me “ suma raka, if you came to my bank with this type of proposal I will not even listen to you”. When I told him that I had done a significant amount of research about it and that I was convinced I could repay the money in much less than the time frame we were talking about, he asked me if I wanted to quit my job. I told him that I hadn’t thought about it, and asked him what that had to do with me wanting to try fishing. He told me that he would rather give a loan for such a project to a fishing family with less collateral than some one whose family are not fishermen. I told him that he was not making much sense to me and he needed to come with something better than that. He explained that for any Gambian to benefit from fishing he must be prepared to go out to sea himself to make sure all catches land at his/her place of choice. He told me that he himself had toyed with idea earlier on and came to the conclusion that he would be wasting his money if he ventured into it. He further explained that some of the fishes that some Gambians don’t eat are in fact delicacies in other parts of the world and that these fetch good money. H told me that these fishes, when caught, are sold out at sea to foreign fishing vessels for considerable sums of money. He also gave me the example of someone whose fishing vessel was impounded for some time by the Senegalese authorities following complaints by a union of some Cassamance fishermen. The owner of the vessel had no idea that sometimes when he is told that fishes were scarce, they were in fact selling them to certain dealers in Cassamance and Guinea Bissau. He gave the example of black snapper (choff) that, he said is sold in Gambia for less than US $2.00 per Kilo being sold for about US $5.00 in the open seas and for about US $3.00 when sold to dealers in Senegal or Guinea Bissau. If you consider the fact that a good local pirogue fitted with an outboard engine costs less than US $8,000.00 and that these boats can bring in several thousand Kilos of fish, it will give you some idea of the potential fishing has. Unfortunately very few Gambians are benefiting from these resources. In fact what is worst is the fact that European and Asian fishing boats enter our territorial waters, illegally catch what ever they want without us even knowing about it. There is an aerial surveillance team and some support from the Gambia navy. However these don’t have the overall capability to stop this daylight robbery and pillage of one of the very few natural resources we have. Till I think of something again, I hope Gambians will think about these. Have a good day, Gassa. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>> To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>