KEBBA JOBE,
Let me point out that as a Gambian with very rare skills and with all
modesty, one of the Continent's Best in my discipline, I can SINCERELY
assure you that Sir Jawara's (excuse me) 'SHIT' is much better than ALL OF
YAYA JAMMEH'S PERSONA. AFTERAL, HE GRADUATED AS AS VET SURGEON AND SERVED
OUR PEOPLE. YAYA IS UNSCHOOLED, UNPRACTISED AND NOT INTELLIGENT HIGH SCHOOL
PRODUCT WHO COULD NOT GET MORE THAN TWO GOOD ORDINARY LEVEL CREDITS.
FRANKLY, THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN COMPARE THE TWO IN THOUGHTS, WORDS AND
DEEDS!!!!. I REST MY CASE. YOU ARE NOT ANY BETTER!!!!


>From: Kebba Jobe <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Some answers to pt1 & 2 of why I can ...
>Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 15:03:28 -0000
>
>Ladies and Gentlemen please forgive me for the many typos and gramatical
>errors in my posts. This is due to lack of time on the one hand and the
>need
>to quickly come the contentious issues of corruption, governance and why I
>can still support the APRC government despite all that has happened under
>their rule. I would also like to apologize to those whose questions I am
>yet
>to answer and also for delaying part 4 which I was going to post today.
>Having said that, I wish to shed more light on certain issues that were
>raised earliar. SAUL, MY SPECIAL APPOLOGIES TO YOU. I have noted your
>points
>and will come back to you very very soon.
>
>Dr. Basil Jones wrote:
>
>"The sooner people stop talking about the "Vision 2020" and concentrate  on
>the primordial challenge of reducing the incidence of poverty in The
>Gambia,
>the better it is for the country. To make The Gambia a middle income
>country
>by 2020, means that we should achieve a minimum per capita income of $800.
>The current level of per capita income is around $350. With an average
>growth rate of 4 percent per annum, it will take a minimum of 18 years for
>our nation's income to double to $700. (this comes from the rule of 70 in
>economics).  18 years from now will take us close to 2020. So even the
>lower
>end of a middle income country will not be achieved. There is only one
>middle income country in the whole of West Africa and surprisingly it is
>Cape Verde, not Senegal or Cote d'Ivoire and these countries have a higher
>per capita income that Gambia. Vision 2020 was articulated without any
>empirical work done as to the sustainability of economic policies and the
>attainability of making The Gambia a middle income country".
>
>Dr Jones, I am sorry not to have mentioned that Vision 2020 is under review
>right now to enable us to take stock of some of the recent developments. As
>you may agree, for any strategic plan to be successfully implemented, there
>is need review it from time to time.
>
>When I read the above paragraph I was really elated. You see our average
>growth in GDP between 1995-1999 averaged 5.33 %. This is remarkable
>considering the sanctions imposed on the country immediately after the
>coupe
>and the devastating effect of the British travel advise which led to the
>collapse of our tourism industry that year. During the same period, the
>USAID pulled out and have not been back since. Most of our traditional
>donors either suspended aid or stopped it altogether.
>
>I agree with entirely when you said "What we should be concentrating on is
>how to achieve the development goal of reducing poverty in the Gambia by 50
>percent by 2015, achieving universal primary education, reducing infant
>mortality rates. To do so need at least a growth rate of 7 percent. These
>are the challenges. For there to be sustainable development in Gambia,
>accelerated investment is needed in health and education and rural
>infrastructure. It is only fair to say that the government has made some
>progress in these sectors. The payoffs, however
>from such investments are long term. It takes up to the time a student
>finishes school to contribute productively to the society".
>
>During the early stages of the APRC government, they were mostly
>preoccupied
>with trying to stabilize the economy, change the attitudes of the people,
>invest in the long term productive sector such as human resource
>development. Recently however, their focus is more geared towards the
>productive sector of the economy. Possitive inputs such as the
>mechanization
>of agriculture, the sinking of boreholes to provide watering points for
>livestock, boreholes for horticulture, gradual reclamation of vital rice
>fields lost to saline intrusion, Improving market accessibility, reviving
>river transport, diversification of our agricultural produce, giving access
>to loans to our poor farmers especially the women farmers, encouraging the
>use of local products, re-engineering our tourism sector etc, etc. Over the
>next 5 five years, government is pumping more than $70 million into these
>sectors mainly through grants and loans. Two other developments that I did
>not mention are the trade gateway project and the free trade zone, both at
>the GPA and environs. The reaon I did not touch on those is because, most
>of
>the information I have are based on public media announcements that I
>cannot
>verify at the moment.
>
>Other possitive moves taken that I also failed to mention are, for example
>the reduction of the tax bands from 16 to 8, zero tax on computers, zero
>tax
>on agricultural inputs etc, etc. All in all, I am hopeful that if we can
>maintain the peace and stability in the country, do away with the
>confrontation, arrest our unsustainable population growth, then we do have
>a
>chance of becoming a middle-income country by the year 2020.
>
>DAMPHA,
>
>You wrote:
>
>1." Let us look at your 'justifications' today. I hope you realized that
>what you have back home is a failed agricultural policy. Gambians are
>hungrier now than they were six years ago. And the bottom-line is food in
>people's mouths. You claimed that rice production has increased. How come
>the price of a bag of rice has not decreased? Economics 101. Supply and
>Demand. If Gambians are producing more rice, it means that we need to
>import
>less rice, i.e. demand for imported rice decreases. Why is that decrease in
>demand not reflected in the price of a bag of rice?"
>
>Dampha, a failed agricultural policy will not make it a priority to provide
>farmers with inputs such as fertilizer, give loans to farmers, provide them
>with seeds, provide them with tractors, combine harvesters, watering holes
>for their livestock etc. That rice production has gone up siginificantly is
>not in doubt. The reason that its impact is not felt, is because of our
>increased population. You also know for a fact that rice production
>projects
>under the Jawara regime failed abysmally.
>
>2." Ah!! We were busy making babies. If you figured out that problem, why
>did you not fix it? The problem is not population growth. Farmers that are
>producing the rice cannot even feed themselves let alone provide for the
>growing urban population. You see, there is a  disconnect between your
>policies and claimed 'successes' and the plight of Gambians."
>
>That we were busy making babies is an understatement. How else can you
>account for the more than doubling of our population in less than 2
>decades?
>You see, to fix this problem is our collective responsibility. One way is
>to
>educate our folks about child spacing, refrain from irresponsible sexual
>behaviour, early marriage and encourage the education of the girl child.
>
>3."You are simply not doing things that alleviate the poverty of the
>average
>Gambian. Whenever we make a false step forward, you take us two tangible
>steps backwards. Are Gambians not better off when they could purchase a bag
>of rice for less than 150 dalasis?"
>
>Poverty alleviation is no easy thing. The Jawara regime did very little to
>develop our economy or its mismanagement. This regime is trying to rectify
>that by giving our rural folks agricultural inputs, digging them wells,
>giving them easy access to education for their children as well as easy
>access to medical and health facilities.
>
>4."I am glad that you pointed out that most of the success in our
>agricultural sector is attributable to natural causes. The rains have
>nothing to do withYaya. What Yaya had a hand in, was and still is, a dismal
>failure. We thank God that He Blessed us with good rains the past few rainy
>seasons. What can we show for God's Great Grace? Rice harvests that cannot
>feed farmers all year round. Mountains of groundnuts Yaya could not help
>sell. Our farmers are in a precarious position. They had always produced
>rice. It is just that the rice they produce cannot feed them year round.
>Previously, they would sell their other products (like groundnuts) and buy
>rice for the rest of the
>year. Now they cannot do that."
>
>I never attributed recent improvements in agricultuiral yield to rains.
>What
>I said was that we cannot only depend on farming methods that only rely on
>the seasonal rains. This is because we have a huge population and very
>limited fertile land. Since our staple food rice and the available swamps
>to
>grow it is limited, we must maximize yield by investing in irrigation
>systems.
>
>5."One of the first ill-advised and dubious deals of the AFPRC government
>when they took over was to confiscate the rice of businessmen like Charbel
>Elhajj and start selling their (AFPRC) own rice from Denton Bridge and
>other
>locations. This was nothing but a dirty ploy AFPRC learnt from their
>counterparts in Sierra Leone (Strasser et al). These bandits stole money
>from Social Security to finance this dubious project. When it is all said
>and done, all these monies will be accounted for. Did that policy have the
>effect of reducing the price of rice? Absolutely not. This government
>cannot
>do anything to reduce the price of rice. They are approaching the problem
>from the wrong angle. The commitment and the political will is not there."
>
>I am lost for words. What on earth are you talking about?
>
>6."Jobe, have you pondered on the idea whether it is cheaper and more
>reliable to import than to produce rice in The Gambia? We have a
>vision-less
>moron leading us and I refuse to give them ideas to move the country
>forward. Just keep talking about irrigation and rains we cannot
>bank on."
>
>The reason imported rice is cheaper is very obvious. We have not been
>producing enough, our farming methods are very primitive and we've been
>very
>busy making more and more babies. More over, even if locally grown rice is
>more expensive people will still consume it. Whatever amount of rice that
>is
>substituted for imported rice, saves us much needed foreign exchange.
>
>7."Moving to the groundnut sector, try touting APRC agriculture and
>economic
>policies to the farmers that cannot sell their nuts. Try telling us about
>the 'success' of your policies when we just  learnt that government coughed
>up $12 million to compensate Alimenta for illegally booting them out of the
>country, thanks to thugs like Baba Jobe. Try talking to those farmers that
>still have Hilo promissory notes in their hands."
>
>If you are honest with yourself, the problem of marketing our agricultural
>produce did not start with Alimenta problem. The cooperative and GPMB both
>failed the Gambian people abysmally. You know it, I know it and even the
>mad
>man in the street knows it.
>
>8."What about groundnut farmers that cannot feed their children two square
>meals a day and take them to school and hospital because they have not seen
>a single 50 dalasis in the past two months? As Hamjatta and Saul try to
>point to you, the reality on the ground does not support your contention
>that Yaya is good for us. We are POORER under his watch than we were six
>years ago. Price of rice (we need to feed our families) has gone UP. Price
>of groundnuts (we need to sell in order to buy rice) has gone DOWN. The
>Dalasi is weak compared to the currencies we use in order to import our
>staple foods. In short, what God has given us in terms of good rains, the
>Devil (Yaya) has taken away from our farmers in terms of corruption and bad
>economic policies that will DEVALUE the money in our pocket (if we are
>lucky
>to sell our groundnuts or get a government job) and INCREASE the price of
>food."
>
>Dampha, the hardship faced by the people of this country did not start
>today. You know for a fact that the seeds of these hardships were sown and
>nurtured by the irresponsible policies of the PPP government that you are
>ready to defend at any cost. We are just reaping the harvest.
>
>9."As far as fisheries is concerned, the industry has also suffered under
>Yaya's watch. It is a blatant lie to say that the industry "has never been
>given the attention it deserved until now." Do the names NPE, SeaGull, Boto
>Manjang, Tanje, Brufut, ColdStore, 'Ganaw Marche, both in Banjul and Bakau
>ring a bell to you? Why this selective amnesia when it suits you? Do you
>know how many millions of Dalasis the PPP government pumped into NPE via
>Commercial Bank? Do you know the incentives the PPP government gave Okran
>to
>bring fisheries from Ghana to Gambia? Do you know the number of trawlers we
>had pre-1994? Did you compare the number of people employed in these
>trawlers pre-1994 to the current figures? Go and ask real professionals in
>the industry about the dismal state of this industry. All you were talking
>about again were pending implementation of projects stolen from PPP."
>
>If you agree that investment in the fisheries sector is good, viable and
>was
>strongly supported by the previous government, why did it fail completely?
>Where is Seagull? What is in Tanje, Brufut or Ganaw Marche?
>
>10."I hope you do not expect the PPP people or the current Opposition to
>get
>loans from Taiwan and implement these projects. Yaya stole power from them.
>If his government does not implement these projects, who do you want to
>implement them? Currently, we have less Gambians earning foreign exchange
>because they are fishing in trawlers belonging to Senegalese and Nigerians
>and Ghanaians."
>
>The PPP people did not implement the projects, the opposition cannot
>implement them because they not in office, so the APRC government, in
>office, is implementing them. I have no problems with that. Do you?
>
>
>11."We have always had a healthy supply of fish. We exported fish even
>during the Jawara regime. Remember?
>
>So what? Doesn't it make any sence to you that improving the productive
>sector of our economy is still a necessity?
>
>12"As far as the energy sector is concerned, the facts on the ground speak
>for themselves. It is already pitch-black. Putting wool over people's eyes
>will have no effect in blinding people. The moron has made several promises
>and failed. So long as he has his generator at the state house and there is
>electricity in Kanilai, he does not care about the rest of the country. You
>are darn right when you noticed that energy is very important in economic
>development. Ask the hotels how much money they spend buying fuel for their
>generators. Ask the Gambian families that lost their appliances and their
>houses because of your despicable power supply. Again, your government does
>not have the political will and the wherewithal to solve our energy
>problem.
>So long as we have thugs like Yaya, Baba Jobe, Tarik Musa, Amadou Samba
>lining up to fatten their bank accounts, our energy problem will not be
>solved. The importation of heavy equipment like electricity generators is
>Yaya's golden chance to receive bribes."
>
>Here you go again. Who pitched us in this darkness in the first place? Do
>you remember OJ's short stint as finance minister, I believe it was in
>1990/91? Does K1 generator from Japan ring a bell?
>
>13."Finally I want to also take issue with your assertion that our economy
>has been predominantly tax-based. As I understand it, what our governments
>collect from taxation is lot less than what we receive in terms of loans
>and
>grants. Just this year Famara Jatta revealed that a staggering 90% of the
>financing of his poverty alleviation program was coming from loans and
>grants; not from taxes. So I do not understand your claim. Granted, the
>government makes a lot of money taxing fuel and farmers, but the money
>received from taxation is less than the money we get from both
>internal(treasury bills) and external loans and grants. Please give us the
>figures on where the government gets the money to finance its projects;
>taxation, loans and grants."
>
>If you don't agree that our economy has been predominantly tax-based, let
>me
>rephrase it this way. Our economy has been predominantly tax and
>begging-based. How about that?
>
>14."As far as the re-export trade is concerned, I would be interested to
>see
>your exhaustive analysis. You just mentioned it in passing. I hope you are
>not insinuating that it picked up during APRC. My reading is that since
>1994
>there are less vehicles plying between Gambia and Mauritania,
>Senegal,Bissau, Conakry, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina, Ghana and
>even as far as Nigeria. Please enlighten us when you tackle this vital
>sector of our economy. Show us how Yaya improved this sector."
>
>Check it out. It has been dealt with.
>
>15."Jobe, I forgive you for your gullibility in regurgitating these IMF and
>World Bank figures and thinking that all is good because the Washington
>Economists say so. If you were here last year you would have seen what me
>and Hamjatta had to say about these figures and how to analyze them. If you
>understood how this data is collected and also understand the time frame
>within which IMF officials work when they visit Gambia to work on these
>figures, you will know how meaningless these figures are to the poor farmer
>in Kiang or the taxi driver in Serrekunda.
>
>IMF and World Bank accept any garbage they are fed by the Central Bank and
>the Ministry of Finance, respectively. Most of these Washington officials
>care less about how our economies are performing. All they care about is
>the
>size of their debt portfolios and whether they can travel to these
>so-called
>Third World countries and live in fancy hotels. For the consumption of my
>dear Dr. Jones, I am saying most, not all IMF and World Bank economists."
>
>Dampha am glad that the word bank and IMF are so gullible that we can feed
>them garbage and receive loans in return. And if the loan repayment becomes
>unsustainable, get debt relieve. But why didn't the PPP figure this out? I
>have learnt a lot. Thank you.
>
>16."Jobe, unlike you, I know how the game is played. I know where these
>figures come from. As I keep saying, my war is with Yaya. I do not seek to
>destroy innocent civil servants that do not work actively to propagate
>Yaya.
>I will let them continue to enjoy their cozy jobs and per diems. It is Yaya
>and people like you that actively support child murderers that I am after."
>
>Me? Not a chance.
>
>17."Moving on to the sectors you want to discuss today, I noticed that you
>have shifted from your earlier posture of trying to make the Jawara record
>an issue. That is an improvement."
>
>Dampha, the Gambian economy of yesteryears and today are inextricably
>linked. Jawara put us in this mess in first place and there is nothing that
>you can say to convince me otherwise.
>
>18."I realized you did not have much to credit the AFPRC/APRC with in our
>Financial sector. The figures you gave us about deposit levels are
>irrelevant to the AFPRC/APRC record. Your analysis spanned from 1985-1995."
>
>On the contrary, I give much credit to the AFPRC/APRC for arresting the
>worsening condition of our economy. My analysis spanned from 1983-1999.
>
>19."So it is conceivable that savings continue to go up in 1995. But this
>was mainly stolen money. The real money that was saved during the Jawara
>era
>and the money that made up the bulk of the figure you cited, came mainly
>from aid agencies (like USAID) that were operating in the
>country. Ask your sources at Standard Bank. Some of the domestic savings
>also came from parastatals like Gamtel, Social Security and Ports. These
>legitimate savings went down and not up during Yaya's watch. Those are the
>figures we are interested in. Don't ride on PPP's record."
>
>Why can't you, for once be honest and accept some facts when they are
>glaringly clear? The PPP record on the economy is nothing to boast about.
>
>20a."When you said that there never existed any commercial courts or
>arbitration office, I can only conclude that you are either engaged in
>semantics or you are exhibiting a deep ignorance of what you are talking
>about. What do you understand a commercial court or an arbitration office
>to
>mean? A building called a commercial court or an arbitration office? Do you
>know that even in the U.S. most arbitration proceedings are conducted at
>the
>offices of private lawyers. There are certain entities like the World
>Bank's
>ICSID and the American Arbitrators' Association that have offices that they
>rent out
>to private litigants that want to use the rules of these arbitration bodies
>to govern the resolution of a dispute. There is no such thing as an
>arbitration office per se. You can conduct an arbitration anywhere the
>arbitrators and the litigants want. Most of the commercial disputes that
>arise in Gambia are governed by arbitration rules of bodies that are
>outside
>Gambia. The arbitrators of those bodies also live outside Gambia. Almost
>invariably, the parties to these disputes even if they are Gambian would
>have chosen a forum other than Gambia to arbitrate their dispute. Take the
>government's case against Alimenta. ICSID rules were used to settle that
>dispute. The arbitrators were not Gambian. One of the parties was not
>Gambian. How would an 'arbitration office' in Gambia feature in this
>equation?"
>
>You have answered yourself below. Please read on.
>
>20b."'Commercial Courts' are also courts that hear commercial disputes. You
>see how ignorant your statement is? Gambian courts hear commercial disputes
>everyday. We do not need a special court house with the sign 'commercial
>court' written at the door. I hope that is not what you meant. If you mean
>that we need judges specialized in just adjudicating commercial disputes,
>that is perhaps understandable. Then again, the commercial docket in The
>Gambia is not that big to warrant specialist judges."
>
>Dampha, that we are signatories to the International Centre for the
>Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICID), the Multilateral Investment
>Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the Islamic Cooperation for the Insurance of
>Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) are not news to me. But since you want
>more clarification on the matter, I'll give it. What I meant was government
>will ensure that a "comprehensive judiciary system that gurantees a fair
>and
>expeditious settlement of disputes" is put in place. In other words
>tribunals that only deal with commercial issues will be introduced in our
>judiciary.
>
>21.(As far as the increased number of commercial banks are concerned, I
>would only point out to you that the banks you mentioned did not first come
>to Gambia after 1994. Some of these banks were in the works long before
>1994. The Islamic Bank did not just appear in the scene in 1994/95. Ask
>your
>sources of information to tell you about the application process of these
>banks. Their commission have very little to do with Yaya and his cohorts."
>
>Dampha, how about the First International Bank (FIB) or the Gurantee Trust
>Bank Gambia limited (GTB). Were they also in the pipeline before 1994?
>
>22."What can I say about the re-export trade and tourism? No amount of spin
>can cover the obvious. Why did you not discuss why the British had that
>travel advisory? It was because a bunch of bandits hijacked our country.
>You
>seriously believe people will buy this garbage about the 'foot and mouth'
>disease? When did that happen? It is the lawlessness in the country and
>silly tax  and tariff regime that killed the tourist industry and the
>re-export trade. Mental midgets like Yankuba Touray cannot do a thing about
>that. They can jail 'bumsters' all they want, but that will not wipe out
>the
>lawlessness in the country."
>
>Some of the issues you raised here are irrelevant to what was saying. All I
>attempted to do was to highlight how volatile the industry is.
>
>23."Finally, I will just point out that because Yaya stole money from the
>people and bought a Mercedes SUV and drives it in Kanilai, does not mean
>that people in Kanilai are not poor. Because Famara Jatta cooks up bogus
>trips to go abroad and earn per diem and drive a government owned vehicle
>to
>so to grocery stores, does not mean that Gambians are not poor. You might
>set your eyes to these token and silly 'luxuries', but we are more
>concerned
>by the fact that there are people in Kiang that do not see a single 50
>dalasi note in two months."
>
>Thank you for this invaluable piece of information.
>
>Bye 4Now, KB Jobe.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
>Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
>You may also send subscription requests to
>[log in to unmask]
>if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your
>full name and e-mail address.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask]
if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------