You hear from many a sycophantic AFPRC/APRC supporter that Yaya has helped ‘develop’ the country. The man does not hold Gambians in contempt. He has good intentions for the country. But these are just empty words that do NOT address the crux of the matter. The Opposition Alliance should explain to Gambians how these development projects come about. We should first of all tell the citizens that over 90% of our development budget comes from grants and loans from so-called Developed Countries. The money does NOT come from Yaya’s pocket or ‘Allah’s Bank’. To support this point, let us wave Famara Jatta’s budget to the people. That budget clearly spells out where the money for our development budget comes from. If it is not coming from the EU, it coming from AfDB or the World Bank or IMF or the Kuwaiti Fund or the Islamic Development Bank or other bilateral donors or lenders. There is no magic about the source of these loans and grants for the development projects. Once the money is in, the rest is relatively easy. Some of this is ‘tied’ aid or loan. The countries and lending institutions that give out these grants and loans, ensure that the money is utilized in the manner the government claimed in its proposals. In other words, when AfDB gives us money to build a hospital, they ensure that one is built. When the EU gives us money to build classrooms, they ensure that one is built. At this implementation phase, the mental midgets running the country have very little input in this. Three-year-olds with a mediocre civil service can oversee these projects. We do NOT need child murderers to oversee such projects. At the implementation stage, Yaya can only steal from us, but he can add nothing. This is the stage where he will grant a contract to CSE to build roads and ask them to build him a villa in Kanilai as a quid pro quo. The critical phase in these development plans is when we develop a plan to attract loans and grants. Obviously, we know that High School drop-outs like the ones leading our country do NOT have the wherewithal to develop these plans. These plans need people with vision. Critical minds like Darboe’s is what we need. We do NOT need people that CANNOT even construct coherent English sentences. But had the mental midgets stopped at being dumb, at least one can say that competent civil servants can pick up the slack. But no! The Dictatorship went with a machete to dismember the civil service. Dismissed good people willy-nilly. The rest are so scared they cannot think straight. They defer to High School drop-outs on issues the morons know nothing about. In short, we have the inmates running the asylum. Empty barrels telling professional economists what to do. But the Dictatorship does NOT stop there either. The vermin go around alienating our ‘development partners’. To this day, the most powerful country in the whole world is imposing sanctions on our country. Why? The vermin stole power from a democratically elected government and went on to steal the 1996 elections. But the alienation and the sanctions do not stop there either. You have some silly low-life, a nobody in 1994, going around accusing respectable countries of picking on Gambia. You have a Foreign Ministry that goes around defending internationally proscribed criminals. Whichever way you slice, the vermin are NOT good for us. If Yaya had good intentions for the country, he will NOT steal tens of millions of dollars from the country to go open a Swiss Bank Account. We need to get rid of these vermin so that the sanctions imposed on our country would be lifted. We need to get rid of these vermin and bring sanity to the civil service. We need a leader with a vision who can map out a comprehensive development plan that will NOT have the net effect of rendering our people poorer. That is what the vermin are doing to us. Under their watch, Gambians have grown poorer. This whole development thing is a mirage to bamboozle gullible Gambians. We need to convey to the people that whatever Yaya did in terms of development (thanks to the generosity of our development partners), Ousainou Darboe can do MUCH BETTER than that. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------