Government plays a major and vital role in the developmental process of
a country’s economy, and also participates fully in reinforcing peace,
justice and the rights of its citizenry. Not too long ago, I wrote a
piece about how impressed we were in Atlanta when we received business
presentation from one Mustapha Njie----Taf. Mr. Njie left Atlanta a
buzz, not necessarily the attractiveness of his business proposals, but
rather gave us a glimpse to the new breed of Gambian entrepreneurs,
smart, very intelligent, global in thinking and have the potential to
play a crucial role in the future economy of our country.

Clearly, Gambia economic future is in the hands of the Sankung Sillah’s,
Amadou Samba’s, and Taf Njie’s and to many other Gambian businessmen.
The successes of these businesses will have a direct impact to the
economy and lives of our people.  And this reminds me of Kaur Dandimayo
in the seventies. Most of us kids in the Primary school learned our
numbers by counting the groundnut trucks waiting to disembark at the
GPMB factory plant, and in the middle of the trade season these trucks
had to wait for days. Kaur was a booming town, not because of government
businesses or programs but because of the Yusupha Najibs, Brian Najibs,
the Fawse’s and the Mass Mbye’s. These were businessmen driven by their
own business interests. They build businesses, created employment,
brought in goods and services and all other economic linkages that made
our Town to be the economic attraction of the region, attracting people
from Senegal, Guinea to Mauritania. These businessmen brought to Kaur, a
town in the middle of nowhere, closer to the twentieth century, whether
it was having a movie theatre, variety of shops, accessed to good and
services, medicine and even electricity. Yes, they brought in their
generators and electrification of their shops and houses, and as kids we
were at least contented with having electricity in the business center,
which became the attraction to our nightly programs, which also included
schoolwork. This down town area became the business center and
contributed immensely to the socio-economic development of our little
town.

The above excerpt clearly indicates how important it is to have
successful businessmen, and the kind of role they can play in our search
for economic development. It is not to down play the role of government,
but to illuminate how important it is for government to assist,
participate and create the ideal environment for more businesses to
flourish. And that involvement should not be intrusive to the part of
interference or taking sides but rather in a regulatory capacity.

And this brings me to the issue at hand, the Taf construction
situation.  The Gambia government should always uphold the law,
intervene to protect rights of individuals, and should never get involve
in targeting and excluding certain businesses as a method of political
expediency.  It is not only unwise but also counter productive to
President Jammeh’s original litany to the commitment of helping
indigenous Gambian businesses. –
The Jammeh’s government cannot allow itself to be seen in deciding which
businesses to lend a hand, or even participate in the competitions of
the different businesses. The successes of all businesses can only help
the country in creating employment, infrastructure development and
investments in other areas of the economy. Take for instance the Hajj
industry, which I have been personally involved in, instead of
government taking a regulatory role and allow the different agencies to
compete, the Jammeh government exploits it and play politics with people
who have work hard to build their own businesses. He has been accused of
taking sides and directly getting involved and sacrificing the successes
of some businesses at the expense of others. Instead of creating
regulations to protect the rights of its citizens, allowing and
enforcing the law of the land, the Jammeh government is in the business
of promoting and taking sides with a particular agency or businessman at
the expense of everyone else.
Finally, I am not fully acquainted with the details with the Taf
construction situation, but seeing the business plan, and the impact
such a project will have in the Gambia, these are the kind of projects
that most serious governments will encourage. In the final analysis,
successful Gambian owned business can be the beginning to economic
prosperity, whether is in terms creating employment, infrstructural
development, access to goods and services, and in the final analysis
create the nexus to peace and prosperity. I am appealing to Mr. Jammeh
to revisit the situation with a mindset of upholding the law, an
important issue to our developmental process, but also the economic
dynamics to our economic development. If a law was broken that led to
the firing of Mr.Bajo, instead of holding him responsible for his
actions, he was only removed from his post. Sir, it will not be
illogical to have doubts to your commitment to upholding the law. You
are absolutely engaged in sending mix messages that ran counter to the
very allegation you leveled against President Jawara in the hay days of
the coup. I will admit that I have absolutely no detailed information of
the issue, no relationship with Mr. Njie, but I have seen his plans,
business proposal and fully convinced that this is the kind of
developmental projects that is good for Gambia. Taf’s situation should
be judged, bearing in mine did he break the law and how will such a
project impact the development activities of the country. Gambia
definitely needs more of Taf construction, and not less of them. Backing
one businessman or businesses at the expense of other entrepreneur is
not the role of a government of all the people. Neither is it smart to
help foreign business at the expense of our own entrepreneurs because
our economic survival is with them.(Gambian Businesspersons)
“It is the economy stupid”(Campaign slogan of the Clinton’s)

Musa Jeng

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------