Joe, Laye and Yusupha, thanks for your contributions to the debate about the
plight of Gambian businessmen/women. You raised issues that I can guarantee
you the mental midgets could NOT grasp. I say that because as you can see
these problems are NOT difficult to solve, yet the morons running our
country are NOT even able to articulate these problems, let alone offer
solutions.

Laye, you broke it down quite well for the government. Tell me this: how can
someone that always shouts about having the interest of the country at heart
miss these fundamental issues? You would have thought that someone that is
honest and smart can implement some of the policies you cited and turn our
economy around in no time. But no! What we have back home is morons that
know nothing but how to steal from government coffers. Matter of fact, they
do NOT even know how to steal, because they left their dirty fingerprints
all over the place. So, we have morons. Period.

Yesterday I gave the example about the government’s treatment of private
hajj-operators. Today, I will use the treatment of Alimenta as an example,
since you touched on foreign direct investment and the need for there to be
a transparent and conducive regime to ensure that investors repatriate their
profits. Thugs led by Baabaa Jobe simply woke up one day, confiscated the
property of Alimenta and overnight ruin our most important industry in the
country. End result: three years in a row farmers CANNOT sell their products
at competitive rates. Alimenta dragged the government to arbitration and the
EU had to come to our rescue with a $12 million grant (that could have gone
to the farmers directly and NOT to pay damages CAUSED BY Baabaa Jobe). Tell
me whether any serious international investor will come to such a climate
where they know that thugs can visit them anytime, throw them out of the
country and make up bogus charges against them. Whose fault is this? Gambian
farmers? Gambians in the Diaspora? Of course we all know that it is the
fault of the thugs and the morons running our country. Any serious
government can (overnight) solve our ‘Groundnut Problem’.

I see Gassama’s pathetic attempts to rationalize Yaya’s irrational rattling.
I wonder what gave Gassama the idea that G_L members do NOT know what is
going on in the country as we speak and what went on pre-1994. For the
hundredth time, I want to tell Gassama that one does NOT have to visit
Gambia to know what is going on there. On the contrary, it appears that
nowadays when people visit Gambia they come back with twisted lies. All it
takes to get the REALITY on the ground is a phone call and an HONEST person
on the Banjul end. I will start with the fishing industry. If Gassama has
figures, he has NEVER given it to us. I remember specifically asking him for
concrete figures and as usual when he is cornered, he unceremoniously
pretends that he was not debating and taking up positions he could not back
up. Case in point is when we discussed Yaya’s corruption few weeks ago.

Now, I want Gassama to tell us in terms of numbers the huge ‘strides’ we
made in the fishing industry. How much foreign currency did we earn pre-1994
and how much are we earning now? This man does NOT even understand how that
industry works. He betrays his ignorance by talking about the dynamics of
the industry vis-à-vis internal sales. Again, there is a simple way of
revitalizing this industry. Unlike you, Laye, I do NOT give the mental
midgets ideas. Yes! I am guilty as charged. I just criticize them. I want
them to mess up so that I will have more to write about. Going back to
Gassama, I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I saw his ‘third
benefit of the fish plant’. He says: “Fishes are graded according to size
and sold by weight”. What the hell is Gassama talking about? People ask him
to list serious issues and he tells us something so obvious, it is
mind-boggling. Since time immemorial this is how fish is sold at Bakau
Market and elsewhere. Talk about scavenging for something ‘positive’ to say
about non-issues.

I will also tell Gassama what can be ‘faulted’ in what Yaya has been saying
about Gambians since he was in High School. We are criticizing an ATTITUDE
and NOT some bizarre off the wall comments he made to a journalist. This is
NOT the first time Yaya has uttered such rubbish. We ‘fault’ him because he
is so NAIVE in his approach to a very serious problem. Instead of doing what
he is being paid for by Gambian taxpayers, the moron goes around criticizing
those people for something that is NOT their fault. Before 1994, did Yaya
start his own business? Did any of the AFPRC/APRC thugs even own a corner
store? These morons could NOT even afford to pay rent. They were living off
of other people. The uniforms they wore were supplied to them by the
government. When Gambians started being enterprising and building their own
houses, where the hell were all these morons now talking down on people
because they stole power and stole millions of dollars from government
coffers? Yaya is being ‘faulted’ because we want him to grow up and tackle
serious issues plaguing our sick economy.

No one from our side of the debate is saying that ‘capital alone’ is what is
stifling the ‘private-sector’. I mentioned our tax regime. I mentioned
electricity (by extension, government infrastructure). I mentioned
government intervention in the hajj business (by extension, illegal meddling
in the private sector). Joe, Yus, Bamba Laye talked about other issues. But
trust Gassama to pretend that he cannot read simple English and attempt to
distort what people said hoping that no one noticed. The only simple-minded
people here are Yaya (that keeps blaming the Gambian people) and the
Gassamas of this world that would say anything to be in Yaya’s good books
(classic definition of a sycophant).

This ‘construction boom’ Gassama keep yapping about. I also noticed Dr.
Saine singing the same song the other day. How many houses have Gassama
built? Let’s start with that. Again, one does NOT have to be in Gambia to
know that houses get built there. That is so easy to figure out that it
boggles my mind to see people like Gassama keep talking about that all the
time and someone like Dr. Saine listing that as a premiere ‘development’ in
the country that ‘Diasporans’ should be impressed with. What is relevant
here is for people to ask where ORDINARY Gambians are getting money from in
order to build their OWN houses. Does government has policies that help
individuals to build their own houses? Are those policies new? Do we need
these morons to implement those policies for us? Can ten-year-olds figure
out those policies? Don’t just tell me about some houses are being built and
we should credit the AFPRC/APRC government for that. Where do these people
expect Gambians to live? Do they expect all Gambians to be beggars and if
Yaya does not steal money and give it back to them, they should starve to
dead? Should we credit the Jawara government for all the houses that were
built in the country during the PPP regime? This is such a non-issue. Talk
about the government’s loan program (if any) to civil servants to help them
build houses. Talk about the millions of dollars corrupt ‘para-statal’
officials give themselves as building advances and prevent lower officials
from getting loans. Talk about the fact banks do NOT give out mortgage loans
because it makes no financial sense. If this government stays in power and
continues with these sick policies, I can guarantee Gassama that the
mortgage bank he spoke about would soon close their doors. People that lived
in America for a while must have heard about the S&L Crisis. You CANNOT use
short-term deposits to finance long-term loans. This is basic banking. Not
all Gambians can take a loan, build a house and then rent it out to some
expatriate in order to finance your mortgage installments. Soon there would
not be enough expatriates. I hope Gassama et al get my drift. If Gambians
are not getting the money from government to build their houses; they are
not getting the money from banks to build their houses, where are they
getting it from? Who is actually financing these houses? Gambians in Spain,
Switzerland, Germany, England, America; that’s who.

Gassama et al are the ones that imagine things. They hope that people ignore
the country and not talk to their folks and honest Gambians. That way, the
Gassamas of this world would go around lying about how good life is in the
country. Like I keep saying, you scrape Gassama a little on the surface, you
are confronted with someone that CANNOT even make ends meet from his salary.
The man CANNOT even recognize that something is really rotten with a system
whereby you play by the rules (get a good education, work hard, have a small
family) and yet still you CANNOT make ends meet, while at the same time you
have thugs and morons like Baabaa (Blood Diamond Dealer) Jobe living large
and talking down on the people they are stealing from. If you have people
like Gassama that cannot even recognize their plight, you cannot expect
those kinds of people to fight for poorer (ordinary) Gambians. These people
are in denial. Telling lies upon lies. I see Gassama responding to some
other mail saying that Yaya et al inherited a bankrupt economy from PPP.
This man is simply unbelievable. I must warn him that his boss has made up
with PPP and now we have APPPRC. He better watch what he says about his new
‘friends’. But on a serious note, this just shows again what an
ignoramus/sycophant we are dealing with. Pre-1994 we had healthy Reserves.
Our currency was stronger. Our farmers could sell their goods. Prices of
basic commodities (rice, oil, sugar) was lower. The tourist industry was
booming. The ‘re-export trade was at its peak. You got trucks lining the
streets of Banjul loaded with goods destined for destinations as far as
Lagos, Nigeria. We had numerous fishing trawlers licensed to fish in our
waters. The streets of Banjul were freshly reconstructed. Gamtel was
thriving. Ports, the same story. In short, the country was heading into the
right direction until the morons stole power and moved us backwards. I will
stop here for now before I am accused of holding brief for the PPP regime.
Just thought I set the record straight for Gassama. AFPRC did NOT inherit a
bankrupt government. They bankrupt the country by stealing from us and not
having the wherewithal to implement sound policies. PPP is gone and will
NEVER come back. It is high time APRC face their problems and NOT try to
deflect it to another regime.
KB


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