Gambia-L:
The e-mail further below is sent to me by one of my sources in the Gambia. I
am however sending it unedited. By the way, let me apologise to you for the
long silence.
I was so busy helping out in the organisation of the this year's African
Liberation Day which was held in Birmingham on Sunday and Monday.
One of the guest speakers at the Birmingham ALD was a Uganda Scientist,
Professor Charles Ssali, who did research on AIDS; and in fact he has got an
interesting information to share on the subject. You may browse through his
web page www.mariandina.or.ug
Ebrima Ceesay
Birmingham, UK
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Hello Ebrima,
I am sure you do remember when the Brusubi Housing Project started. It was
conceived toward the end of the Jawara era and immediately taken over by the
AFPRC as one of their transition projects. That was in 1994.
The Social Security Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) Managing Director,
Andrew Sylva, told the Gambian Nation, in his GRTS interview of Saturday,
that "phase one of the Brusubi Housing Project is virtually completed".
What does phase one comprise of? It comprises 57 housing units, of which
ONLY 3 units have been completed ( in six years) and "available for
demonstration as samples to the public". I do not regard 3 completed units
out of 57 as "virtually completed" even though we live in a virtual reality
world.
The second, third and fourth options (are you with me?) under the first
phase comprise of empty undeveloped plots of which they have been able to
dispose of a fraction. The project has been judged to be non-viable by
several donors. Yet, Yankuba Touray (when he was in charge of AFPRC
Projects) and Mr Sylva tried their best to peddle the idea to donors without
success.
They finally decided to finance almost the entire project out of the
resources of social security - which is your Social Security payments (I
assume The Daily Observer deducted social security from your meagre salary),
my wife's and the ordinary person in the street.
All of this in the name of promoting the cause of the AFPRC/APRC. In one of
my earlier messages to you, I alluded to TAF CONSTRUCTION's competitors as
partly responsible for his current woes. Well, the SSHFC is the most
formidable competitor apart from that guy "Yahya Jammeh's business partner"
who will remain nameless.
The SSHFC has been opposed to TAF's project from the unset, and has written
several letters opposing allocation of land to TAF. Andrew Sylva's claims in
his interview, is to justify this Government's action against TAF and also
to justify the continued involvement of SSHFC in such schemes.
Mr. Sylva continues to nudge the SSHFC toward insolvency. Apart from
non-viable and ill-conceived projects, he has been playing ball with this
regime and using public funds in dubious transactions (arms, rice) which are
outside the mission of the SSHFC for which he will be called upon to account
one fine day.
The housing finance arm of his organisation would have to be privatised at
the appropriate time. Meanwhile, let us hope that the damage inflicted thus
far will not render the SSHFC insolvent by then.
Thanks as usual!
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