Folks, below is a very good article by Cherno Baba Jallow.  Gambians can no
longer deny the failure that is Yaya Jammeh and the APRC.  Our people,
regardless of party loyalty, ethnicity, or religion are suffering from the
stealing and general plunder of our resources by a corrupt and ignorant
bunch.  Folks, the APRC is bad news for Gambia now and in the future.
Please read on.



Follow the Money

The Independent (Banjul)

COLUMN
April 11, 2003
Posted to the web April 11, 2003

Cherno Baba Jallow
Detroit

So you still think that the APRC government is accountable and transparent?
You think this government cares about the democratic process of submitting
to the consent of the governed? Are you still convinced that this government
has the moral claim to preach against corruption? You still disagree that
this government is scandalously irremediable? Can this government
demonstrate financial responsibility in its conduct of public functions? Are
these questions legitimate?

To answer dismissively is to run the risk of culpability. In 1994, President
Yahya Jammeh came to power promising much to restore financial discipline in
government. The previous administration had done much damage to the twin
pillars of transparency and accountability.

Corruption and financial recklessness shot through the roof. The national
treasury became a honey-pot for public functionaries to dip into without
worrying about prosecution.

Worse: the flamboyance of government reached petrifying levels. The national
treasury ran dry thanks to the lavishness and corruption of government.
Jammeh said he was going to eradicate these social pathologies and usher in
a new era of accountability and probity. He said this with much candour that
his promises came trippingly from the lips of everybody.

But Jammeh has failed tremendously in virtually every call he had made.

His by-words of accountability and transparency have now virtually vanished
from his lexicon. Nobody hears the president talk about transparency and
probity anymore. The reason is, he has become more unaccountable than his
predecessor ever was. Stealthily and beyond comprehension, Jammeh has become
one, if not the richest, Gambian today.

How he's gotten his riches in a span of just nine years boggles the mind.
Jammeh now doles out money like the ancient Malian King Mansa Musa
recklessly gave out gold on his pilgrimage to Mecca. Added together, Jammeh
has donated more than D2m since he came to power. Yet earning just a little
over D20, 000 per month, how is the president able to live such opulence?
Where does he get his money? What is financing his myriad of personal
projects?

Allegations are rife that Jammeh has accumulated considerable wealth through
an oil deal he had entered into with the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha.
In 1996, reports indicated that The Gambia Government lifted large
quantities of crude oil from Nigeria under Abacha. Perhaps, it was a measure
of Abacha's gratitude for The Gambia's opposition to the expulsion of
Nigeria from the Commonwealth over the hanging of the Nigerian activist Ken
Saro Wiwa.

The money accrued from the crude oil deal was allegedly chalked up by a few
people in the name of The Gambian government. Jammeh has never been able to
convince the people of his innocence in this shady transaction.

His only reference to the deal was that some people had fraudulently tried
to forge signatures on a crude oil deal on behalf of The Gambia.

Jammeh said having learnt of this, he immediately squashed the deal.

Three years ago, the National Assembly thwarted efforts by the opposition to
investigate the president's alleged involvement in the crude oil deal. Using
their numerical strength, members of the ruling party aborted any
parliamentary investigations into the matter. The issue was left to die and
edge out of the public consciousness much to Jammeh's relief.

Not anymore. Again, another crude oil scandal has hit the presidency.

Nigeria's THISDAY reports that "The Gambia is being accused by Earth
Resources Management Agency Limited of being a conspirator and a willing
vehicle in an attempt to fraudulently hoodwink the Federal Government of
Nigeria in an oil scam which would lead to the diversion of an unauthorized
thousands of metric tonnes of petroleum products from Nigeria for personal
gain " The paper, in its investigation, found that the Gambian government
had been lifting petroleum products and illegally diverting them rather than
for agreed consumption in The Gambia.

The newspaper further reports that it had "uncovered the intentions of
officials of the Gambia High Commission and the Yahya Jammeh-led government
to cover up the deal and have been busy shuttling between Banjul and Abuja
." On the same matter, and in a press release, The United Democratic Party
(UDP) revealed that The Gambia has been "ripped off with more than $350m"
out of this crude oil transaction. The party further stated that such a huge
misappropriation couldn't have taken place without Jammeh's knowledge.

So far the APRC has been tight-lipped on this matter. Perhaps, the
government's reticence boils down to two essential ingredients of THISDAY'S
investigation: diversion of petroleum products for "personal gain" and a
"cover-up" of the whole deal. Transparency was missing here, but the
inordinate ambition for personal enrichment wasn't. Corruption has the
tendency to germinate and flourish in an environment less amenable to
openness and democratic mannerism. Truer still, government, in its selfish
pursuit of private agendas, has the characteristic audacity of undermining
the national interest.

Even in the secrecy of governmental undertakings, history has a way of
repeating itself.

When this government came to power in 1994, it exposed what was then a
publicly unknown crude oil deal between Jawara and a Nigerian government in
years of old. In the 1980s, when the economies of most West African states
were in the throes of malignancy, the Nigerian government, in a goodwill
gesture to its sister countries, gave out huge quantities of oil to enable
them resuscitate their national economies. The Gambia was a huge beneficiary
of this deal as it reportedly accrued close to $41m.

It was a secret deal most Gambians had never known about until Jammeh
constituted an inquiry into the matter.

The commission could determine that this huge sum was illegally diverted but
could not pinpoint exactly to whom. Most of the money, according to some
government functionaries who testified before the commission, went into the
"miscellaneous" expenses of the national budget. Translation: invisible
hands just diverted the money into private ownership at the expense of
national development.

Now, we have a government that was supposed to have cleaned the Augean
stables of the PPP allegedly engaging in similar shady deals. The financial
scandals of the APRC, fissiparous in nature, have now overtaken those of the
PPP. Public confidence in this government has reached vanishing points. It
is part betrayal of trust and responsibility, part inattentiveness to the
miseries and concerns of the masses.

Reduced to the fringes of penury, and compelled to consume news of shady
transactions returning whopping sums of money, the people cannot but feel
further victimized by a government incapable of economic recovery.

The cost of living in the country has reached dangerous levels. Yet Jammeh
has shown neither the leadership gumption nor the sympathetic touch to
relieve Gambians of their economic burden.

The current scandal is one more irritant for the citizenry. It also renders
another instance of the powerlessness of the people to hold their leaders
accountable. With a weak opposition in the National Assembly and
governmental machinery well lubricated against the wishes of the people, it
is next to impossible to mount an investigation into this scandal. Yet the
frequency of such scandals is too ominous to be left unresolved by those
entrusted with the task of representing the people.

Better still: the Nigerian government must follow the money trail and ask
the right questions. Huge Nigerian resources have been allocated to The
Gambia supposedly for national development only to be diverted into private
use. That's a waste of Nigerian resources and a disservice to the Nigerian
people.

Fighting corruption in Nigeria also entails awareness of where and how its
funds are being disbursed externally. If nothing else, that serves the
interest of the Nigerian taxpayer.








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