Dampha:

I enjoy your writings but I have to admit that I find
it real difficult to read your postings for the mere
fact that you don't use paragraphs or double line
spacing.  Paragraphs will definitely make it more
legible and easier to read.

Thanks for your contribution
--- Dampha Kebba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Ebrima, thanks for forwarding this to G_L. I just
> glanced at the lengthy
> document for the first time. Be rest assured that I
> will study it during the
> course of the next weekend and see how this
> government continues to fail the
> Gambian people. Suffice for me to say at this stage
> that I was not
> encouraged with the little I saw from Famara Jatta.
> I could not find a
> single sector that the government did not register a
> decline or failure to
> meet projections. This is pathetic. Knowing these
> incompetent functionaries
> (Jatta et al), am sure their projections were very
> modest (conservative). So
> it speaks volumes if they say that they did not meet
> those benchmarks they
> set for themselves. These people did not have
> anything to offer us except
> misery. What is the point in reporting increased
> output in groundnut
> production if the farmers are not given a conducive
> environment to sell
> their nuts? Ebrima, I was also particularly struck
> by the magnitude of our
> debt burden. This is where such silly economist
> words like 'staggering'
> should be used. I hope the opposition back home will
> challenge Jatta to
> itemize this debt burden. Jatta should be asked to
> account for the almost
> US$200 million that came into the country in the
> last seven years. May be
> some economists on the List can tell us the
> rationale behind Jatta's
> decision to use stats from 1992 and not 1994. Jatta
> should be asked to
> isolate the amount Yaya's government borrowed and
> explain where Yaya and his
> cohorts put that money. US$200 million is a lot of
> money and I can safely
> predict that Yaya's corrupt government borrowed 80%
> of the amount. What can
> they show for it? An airport terminal building that
> is leaking. A
> refurbished state house. A road in the middle of no
> where ordinary Gambians
> go. The list of silly projects goes on. Instead of
> solving the nation's
> energy problem, building roads ordinary Gambians can
> use to go to work,
> building low income houses etc., corrupt civil
> servants use our scarce
> resources to finance silly trips abroad and collude
> in building hefty
> foreign bank accounts for Yaya. Ebrima, there is
> massive fraud going on in
> the country. The major culprits are the likes of
> Famara Jatta and those so
> called intellectuals behind a mental midget like
> Yaya. Today, if we
> challenged Jatta, he would not be able to tell us
> how to manage a viable
> economy in The Gambia. These people have neither the
> wherewithal, not the
> integrity to run a country with a thug like Yaya at
> the helm. They are not
> prepared to do what it would take to turn things
> around. I can guarantee
> that if these people were to stay till next year
> (which will not happen),
> Jatta will be back with another dismal report. There
> will be many declines
> and in areas where there are improvements, they will
> fail to meet modest
> projections. Just how is Jatta going to succeed in
> reducing both the
> internal and external debt burdens at the same time
> that they are reducing
> taxes and increasing spending to reduce poverty?
> Can't happen. Especially in
> an environment where there is no incentive for
> people to be more productive.
> Especially also, at a stage when Jatta is telling us
> that our major sectors
> (agriculture and tourism) are showing declined
> earnings. Let us for one
> moment probe into how our government services
> (reduces) its external loans.
> Ordinarily, when a payment is due, Central Bank
> should use part of our
> reserves (built mainly from grants and loans) to
> service our external debt
> burden. What our rogue government does, is anybody's
> guess. So in other
> words, we are borrowing to pay debts. The Central
> Bank can also get dalasis
> which it would convert to foreign currencies before
> depositing the money in
> foreign accounts (reserves). This has the dual
> purpose of helping to build
> up the reserves and also getting rid of excess
> dalasis in the economy. But
> what they do not tell you is that this money comes
> mainly from internal
> lenders (commercial banks and SSHFC). So here again,
> we are borrowing to pay
> off debts. Nothing but a Ponzy Scheme. Paying old
> lenders with money from
> new lenders. Ebrima, it is not every year that we
> will be able to sell
> Atlantic Hotel and pay some of our debtors. So
> reducing the internal debt
> burden would tantamount to not paying civil servant
> salaries. This so called
> 'internal debt' is just a fancy way of describing
> the money government gets
> from the sale of treasury bills. In my opinion, this
> phenomenon is the major
> reason why commercial banks cannot play a major role
> in private sector
> development. Ebrima, private businessmen compete
> with the government for
> loans from the banks and SSHFC. It is just logical
> that when that happens,
> the government wins, because it lures the banks with
> a very high interest
> rate and a guarantee that they will get paid. Why
> would the banks risk
> lending to a private businessman at ridiculously
> high interest rates when
> they can get a 19% return from the government that
> technically cannot go
> bankrupt? Yaya and Jatta cannot solve this
> conundrum. If they forego the
> money they get from Standard Bank through treasury
> bills, they will not be
> able to pay salaries and pay down the external
> national debt. On the other
> hand, so long as Standard Chartered can make a cool
> 19% from the government,
> they will not lend to ordinary Gambians if they are
> not Amadou Samba or
> Charbel Elhajj. So local lenders cannot support a
> private sector led growth.
> Ebrima, I will leave the tax (fiscal issues) to more
> seasoned economists or
> to a later day. At this stage I will just say that
> massive fraud also goes
> on in that domain. Take the cost of gas for
> instance.  Almost 75% of the
> cost of gas in the country goes to the government in
> one form of tax or the
> other. The high cost of this essential commodity is
> one of the major causes
> of our poor stage of development. When Famara Jatta
> talks about the hike in
> oil prices worldwide, what he does not say is that
> those price hikes have
> little or no bearing on the price of gas in The
> Gambia. What he should talk
> about, is the size of the tax slapped on the price
> of gas that is imported
> into the country. What he also does not talk about,
> is the over-heads oil
> companies pass on to consumer as a result of bribes
> paid to finance
> ministers. African countries are addicted to this
> tax. There is nothing
> wrong in collecting taxes. But, for Heaven's sake,
> put the money into good
> use. It would have been acceptable to most Gambians
> if their tax dalasis
> were used to build better roads (as opposed to dead
> traps) from up country
> to Banjul (rather than from Yundum airport to the
> hotels). Most people would
> also live with their tax dalasis going towards
> buying better electricity
> generating equipment. But the reality on the ground,
> is that we have
> incompetent civil servants who spend their days
> seeking creative means of
> finding trips to go abroad and receive allowances
> from the government rather
> than finding ways to contribute to our national
> development. Let me hasten
> to add that I do not paint all civil servants with
> the same brush. Those
> without a trace of integrity know themselves. What
> we also have, are
> nonentities like Yaya who did not even have a
> complete high school education
> telling professionals what to do. Yaya does not know
> a darn thing about how
> to run an economy. Under normal circumstances, he
> should have been relying
> on Famara Jatta to advise him in this field. But
> apart from the daunting
>
=== message truncated ===>


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