Culled from The Independent


October 18 Will See a New Country - Sidia Jatta



The Independent (Banjul)

October 5, 2001
Posted to the web October 8, 2001

Lamin Dibba
Banjul, the Gambia

Mr. Sidia Jatta, presidential nominee of the People's Democratic
Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) has said "October 18th
2001 will be the day when Gambian electorates will throw Gambia in shambles
or make a new Gambia for the betterment of every citizen through their
ballots.

Addressing a mass PDOIS rally at Brikama on Friday Jatta said that the
Gambian electorates should this year open their eyes and vote in an
efficient political party which will up-lift the hardship Gambians have been
going through for the pass thirty-one years.

"No matter, we will flush out president Jammeh this year", he asserted.

The PDOIS nominee also said that the "dalasis is sinking into a bottomless
ocean everyday," and that is why "the prices of every commodity is rising
high because the demand for our import is higher than our export."

"Two years ago our import and export trade had a lose of two thousand four
hundred million dalasis," Mr. Jatta said. The PDOIS presidential nominee
also said that the loan around the neck of the Gambia is over eight billion
dalasis and that this year four hundred and seventeen million will be taken
from the Treasury to pay off loans.

Jatta also alleged that "from an eighty-year-old to a newly born baby in The
Gambia, each has an eight thousand loan tied around his or her neck and,"
and that "it is a must that every loan on the Gambia will be paid."

"That is why the World Bank and the IMF dictate to the Gambian government to
sell some of our major companies that earn us lots of money," Mr. Jatta
alleged.

"If what is written is not changed Gamtel, GPA, GPTC and others companies
will be sold to pay our loans. Sidia Jatta also said; "all the projects that
the APRC government have been singing of are all loans with very heavy
interests." He cited the Kombo Coastal Road project which he valued at a
hundred and twelve million dalasi loan from the Kuwait fund. "The Bwiam
hospital thirty million dalasis, the forty-six million dalasis Soma hospital
and the hundred and sixty million Mandinaba-West Field Road project are all
loans," he said.

Mr. Jatta said that if voted in as president this year his first priority
will be "to alleviate poverty and improve agriculture which is the back-bone
of The Gambia." He said health education and the living standards of
Gambians will be improved and "all the clauses in the constitution inimical
to democracy will be repealed. "This is a chance for Gambians to either
continue the hardship on us or have a relief come October 18," Jatta said.




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