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.






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