Lie Jallow's excellent analysis of how education and healthcare availability
viz-a-viz the farmers, point to a larger and more devastating predicament for
hundreds of thousands of our people. For three consecutive years, the farmers
who in their entirety depend on a single income stream per annum have been
left to wither in the vines. What they have gotten from this government is an
alternating cocktail of contempt, outright lies, shirking of responsibility
and a huge monetary loss in the tens of millions of Dalasis that was incurred
as a result of institutional misbehavior and corruption. The most galling
aspect of it all is that this government has neither the inclination nor the
ability to extricate the poor farmers in this life threatening mess they have
created. They have no standing to negotiate much less bring in a credible
buyer. It takes an incredible level of vileness to show no sense of urgency
when the majority of a country's citizens face the kinds of existential
questions that our penniless farmers face only to be treated with a never
ending web of lies and excuses. For the benefit of list members who are not
intimately familiar with the economics and realities of Gambian subsistence
farming, I'd like to give you a snap shot of the issues most are facing. On
average families earn a few hundred dollars from the sale of their peanuts at
the end of a season. They also cultivate corn, millet and other assorted
staples for consumption. Because of the primitive and labor intensive nature
of the agriculture the output at the end of the season for those crops
primarily slated for consumption is almost always not sufficient to take the
families all year round. A good chunk of the few hundred dollars earned from
the peanuts is used to purchase extra bags of rice to supplement the coos,
corn and millet. That is why in my own village of Demfai , during the weeks
of the trade season when the peanuts are sold, the traditional coos based
diet gives way to rice in the afternoons so that with only the evening
Cherreh ,folks conserve the coos and corn till the rainy season. This serves
a very practical purpose in that you can  get more meals from the corn and
coos than you can from the rice which comes in very handy in the rainy season
when money is very scarce. Even in normal times when there is a functional
trade season folks run out of food in the middle of the rainy season. The
difference however lies in the fact that they can often borrow a few bags
from the village trader against their earnings in the upcoming season.
Families also try to get a few clothes , flash lights, batteries and other
very basic little things from the few hundred dollars they make from selling
their peanuts. They also have to squeeze in school fees which has now become
an impossibility for most of them. The social fabric of our communities are
also sustained by these meager sums because folks have to marry, get sick,
help eachother out all of which entail resource expenditure. Only folks who
have relatives overseas or with a government job can remotely have their
situations ameliorated. The rest which accounts for the overwhelming majority
have to contend with incalculable hardship with no practical end in sight.
They have no money and they won't have any money at all.Yet every year the
tax man shows up at their door step and they are assessed for every hut and
livestock they posses. When their taxes are collected, part of it stolen by
the local gov't and rest is sent to the central gov't treasury. Yahya Jammeh
then takes that money , leases himself a plane, pays himself D26,000,
appropriates over D3million as travel allowance and perdiem for just one
year, spends tens of millions more on himself at the Statehouse . All of this
does not include chartered flights to and from Washington DC for his wife and
entourage for pre and post natal care at the Washington Hospital Centre the
clinic of choice for wealthy Arabs.Meanwhile the poor farmer sassed taxes
despite registering no income gets absolutely nothing in return. He works at
a backbreaking job, lives on an extremely poor diet, and ultimately die a
premature death. If any list member travels the length of country, what you
would see are palpable signs of malnutrition, despair and utter devastation.
It is an absolutely unforgivable act of cruelty and neglect. People who work
hard and play by the rules are entitled to live a life of dignity. None of
these farmers are asking for handout. They never have. All they want and
deserve is to live on account of their sweat. This government has ruined
their lives.
Karamba

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