Our Economic Salvation Genuine Long-Term Vision, Strategy And Courage
The Independent (Banjul)
OPINION
August 13, 2001
Posted to the web August 14, 2001
Lamin Jabbi Barrister & Solicitor of the Supreme Court of the Gambia
Banjul, the Gambia
I can say with aplomb that today the world over, economic issues have
conveniently replaced "politics" in terms of national or even international
priorities. Now politics is about the quality and content of a nation's
economy. The size of a country's army or ammunition is irrelevant.
Constitutionally, "the State shall endeavor to create an economic
environment that maximizes the state of economic growth and employment and
secure the maximum welfare and prosperity for all persons in the Gambia."
There is now recognition of what others call "economic democracy" where the
state (i.e. the government) shall endeavor to keep inflation under control.
History will record that the greatest mistake of the Gambian republic in the
first 35 years of its existence was to make for less investment in human
resource - investment in family planning, education, public health and
nutrition than in extending the traditional " Mansa" type of leadership,
where the leadership of any type is worshipped.
We have neither qualitative growth nor qualitative development. Both our
gross national product and gross national happiness are static.
As often said, honesty is the best policy and development is the best
contraceptive. Our development will not be possible if our present increase
in numbers continues.
Education, particularly that of the girl child is another excellent
contraceptive. We keep on tackling a 35 year problems with five-year plans,
staffed by three-year officials, working with one-year appropriations -
fondly hoping that somehow the laws of economics will be suspended because
we are Gambians.
Do we have any long-term vision, courage and strategy for our economy? Can
we adopt honesty as our best policy? Can a citizen survive honorably without
paying bribes? Or is he/she bound to go bust if he/she is honest? What does
honesty mean to the ordinary citizen? It means getting things done without
having to pay money or doing things as required by the law without expecting
payment or any reward other that the necessary pay/salary.
Why people believe that nothing gets done if one resorts to honest means?
Why bribe at every step? Well, maybe there are inefficient and insensitive
systems at such points, which do not care to deliver.
Here we are! We seem to be up in a vicious circle of policy mistakes and
certain reactive quick measures, in the process continually being drawn
towards an economic black hole.
I recall the era of our Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) when so-called
liberalisation, retrenchment etc were talked about. A lot of young people
lost their jobs. Now I can see why all such reforms make no difference in
our lives. Without a vision, a long-term strategy and courage any reform
would result in a serious bankruptcy (in physical resources and ideas). Our
economic policy makers, I think, so far at best acted to define policies
which all improve only our foreign exchange reserves. Our policy failures
have piled up through the decades with dishonesty, and by their own weight
have crushed our ability to think afresh. Yes, we are now at a point when we
need to reject all this refuse of the past with strength and courage. Mere
rethorics and spirits cannot do much in the process of boosting economic
development.
Interestingly, policies or plans come and go with their architects. It is
just like an empty barrel - you have different sounds by beating the top or
the sides. This is what has been occurring to us - different drummers,
beating the same barrel without seeing the inside of the same! This led us
to a series of crises and the first is our over-confidence in our leadership
in believing that whatever they do is right for the country. They seem never
to question the basic processes and attitudes, which are taking the nation
off track.
Secondly, we have this crisis of confidence in ourselves with great deal of
dishonesty. We are rather becoming increasingly over-dependent on economic
and management recipes, products and services developed in other societies.
We do not seem to have confidence in our intellect to serve our own people
with solutions they require and can afford. Thirdly, there is the question
of crisis of confidence of foreign investors. This is no doubt natural. As
for example, even if the whole country is electrified, if we do not have
confidence in each other, we will naturally put off the overseas investors.
No country has risen with the base of society weak and the leadership
unclear about the long-term.
We could set things right but this requires intellectual honesty. Where an
officer who closes his/her eyes while corruption is taking place in his
department, be it by politicians or by his subordinates, is being
intellectually dishonest. This is one of the tragedies of our
administration. If the majority of the people of this tiny strip of land
believe that an honest man cannot survive, does it not go against the
instinct of self-preservation to stand on high moral grounds and watch
oneself being helplessly swept away by a strong current? Unless money
changed hands nothing seems to be "active and lively". Survival has become a
nightmare for ordinary citizens. It is easy to preach from air-conditioned
offices to helpless people on the street that they should not pay bribes.
Things can improve only if people get together and demand (by reminding all)
better governance and accountability.
Corruption is the major reason why any act of liberalisation does not
produce the desired result. It may not be talked about for others see it as
a taboo, but if the global corruption rate is 7 percent and if the Gambian
corruption rate is 13 percent, we have a 6 percent disadvantage on a product
in the world market.
It may be seen as a laughable phenomenon but others have suggested it long
since. That is, if we agree that there is a global competitive corruption
rate then we must also agree that we have our national competitive
corruption rate. If our corruption rate in this country is higher than the
global competitive corruption rate, our economy will not survive! Our
ability to survive as a nation depends on the ability of our citizens to
believe that honesty is the best policy for anything.
We have certainly benefited from the few liberalisations on moves but
economists would want us to believe that any such liberalisation is possible
only when our mind is liberated to identify new frontiers of socio-economic
advancement. This, they say, should only follow after a certain social
purpose is accomplished in the "non-liberated" environment. If our policies
were defined with a wider-angle lens and with a strategic perspective to
develop a competitive nation in our sub-region by utilizing our human
resources, we would have created a significant impact in the huts and
villages of rural Gambia. We may in fact create exports with pride!
Even if the government has to embark upon the process of equitable
distribution of our wealth (if any) it has to be done in line with the
spirit of wealth creation. Continuous failure in meeting the fundamental
objectives has certainly given rise to social tensions - increasing gap
between the different economic strata has been superficially addressed with
different populist policies. A sincere economist at our Department of State
for Finance would agree with me that non-productive government expenditures
along with administrative inefficiencies have only increased and leakage of
uncoordinated initiative are resulting in mounting fiscal deficit.
Focus should now be on creating the necessary social ambience and
environment for distributing wealth creation as opposed to sharing of
wealth. Any promise to reduce fiscal deficit will only be a perpetual
fallacy which would create either hyper - inflation or super-stagnation
paving the path to our bankruptcy. We may even create or print a two hundred
Dalasis note but that is not the solution!
Yes with all these in mind, we need to develop a vision of political system,
which will be in the best interest of The Gambia. Such a vision has to come
from within for we also have our variables, which cannot be replicated. For
any meaningful economic development (Vision 2020), we need a high level of
integrity, work ethics and honesty in different segments of the social
structure. Many of our businessmen and women believe that business means how
to generate profit by beating the system under-delivering to the environment
while "sucking" the most out of it. We need to be more innovative and
strategic in revitalising the economy. One needs not become an economist to
know that.
To realise the economic goals of our constitution, we can learn from even
the tiny island nation of Mauritius. Its development has "real" democracy as
its trademark. We can only succeed with long-term vision, strategy and
courage.
_________________________________________________________________
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