Folks, how many times have we read these first hand experiences only to have
Gassama come and spin the same material counter-clockwise? Who is the APRC
kidding? They can lie all they want, the fact remains that our people are
suffering misserably and they cannot rescue us from the economic meltdown
that resulted from their ill-thoughtout policies. No amount of lying will
take away the hunger from the hungry. please read on.
Independent View Our Crisis of Survival
The Independent (Banjul)
November 15, 2002
Posted to the web November 15, 2002
Banjul
We refuse to live in dreamland anymore. The crisis for survival has reached
flashing red. Our government can no longer afford to ignore what is going
on. We are in economic shambles and some tendencies therein are not helping
the poor in their daily struggle to keep head above water.
The most telling parts of our economic doldrums, is the dropping dalasi and
the rising standard of living for which only the APRC government is to
blame. There is no other explanation to give other than that, which strongly
suggests that our economy is not being handled the way it should be handled,
by a government unwilling to accept its costly mistakes, inherent ineptitude
and rapacious tendencies in administering the nation's coffers. The lack of
fiscal discipline ensures that whims and caprices are depended upon to give
approvals for pubic spending and so real accountability is just in name.
Nothing more. The government is interested in populist projects in the form
of roads and bridges instead of the more pressing task of mapping out the
'roads' to prosperity. But it is only a government of self-conceited
individuals, who would pretend that our lives are a lot better than they
were eight years ago. It is only a government living by the spirit of its
own self-delusion, which would turn its gaze from the suffering of the
teeming mass of Gambians who have entrusted their future on a creaking
Cabinet of politicians, who eight years have taught how to talk people into
believing dreams and just dreams.
When the AFPRC government came to power, the economy was in far better shape
than it is now. Of all his faults and shortcomings, ex-president Jawara had
presided over a much more stable economy augmented by a stable local
currency. In those times the dollar was selling at D8.
There was no doubt that it was the strongest currency in the sub-region.
We are not holding brief for Jawara's regime but if this is the type of
economic transformation that Jammeh and his band of coupists were envisaging
for us after storming State House, then it is inconceivable how they could
have won the weary hearts of Gambians. If a thoroughly devalued currency and
a dropping standard of living are all that the APRC can show after eight
years, then there is no reason why we should continue to trust Yahya
Jammeh's government with our future - our lives.
If Gambians are sincere to themselves, then they should be unanimous in
telling the government that it is failing and there is no indication that
the trend would be arrested before the incipient economic crisis washes us
into the deeper sea. The best way to measure the success or otherwise of a
government is how its citizens are faring in tandem with the standard of
living and how strong their purchasing power is. That, dishearteningly, is
embarrassingly absent. If the APRC government were a doctor sent to diagnose
our national aliment and prescribe an antidote, eight years of fleeting
failures would have been enough to abandon its patient, with sure knowledge
of its inability. As we ponder over where the APRC government is leading our
blighted lives, a growing section of the business community is shunning the
devalued dalasi.
Landlords also prefer the dollar to the local currency. They are losing
faith in the Dalasi and they can only be faulted to a point.
The whole blame is squarely at the feet of Yahya Jammeh's government who
fond of dishing out some 'home truths' should be given a dose of it himself.
It is criminal to be silent about something going wrong and The Independent
will not shy away from what is takes to bring the whole truth to the common
man who right now is thinking of the next day without the means to feed his
family. In the meantime we will live in self-pity.
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