Saiks
Ebou sowe(lupi) was in the gambia for some months trying to establish his
business. As you know he is a proffessional welder trained here in Norway
and have his workshop at Bundung. When i met him in the Gambia he was going
round from place to place marketing his products which includes dust bins
which i am sure is far more cheaper and better in quality than the ones
ordered outside the country.
I really dont know when we will start seeing the efforts made by our young
and talented Gambians and start encouraging them.

Just a short contribution
Matarr


>From: saikss <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Boom or Doomed
>Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:34:09 +0200
>
>Jungle,
>
>Sorry for responding late. Your silence over some of the issues I raised
>seems
>to confirm that you see my points. If Tariq Musa ordered dust-bins from out
>side the country to be bought by government authorities whiles we have a
>Sankung Sillah is not a serious approach to national development. If we can
>order containers for collecting rubbish whiles we have small industries,
>who
>are struggle to survive daily and could produce the same type or even
>something better is also not a serious approach to national development.
>This
>has been my point of take off. I am not saying that communication net work
>should not be extended to the rural arrears, my problem is that we have
>other
>urgent development issues than that. Remember the great majority of our
>farmers are still using hoe and living in huts, drikking from well water
>and
>the majority of them could not provide a decent three daily meals. If you
>are
>to invest a $10million project on behave of these people then one must be
>very
>conscious as to what is intended to achieve. The amount of people who will
>be
>able to afford telephone in the rural areas is very limited, likewise a
>television, the State might end up subsidising for these services.
>Get me right here; I am not saying that we don't need well-constructed
>roads.
>This we need as much as efficient electricity supply. The issue is, do we
>actually need to spend so much in the construction of these roads? What I
>am
>saying is that, we don't need a four lane highway inside Serre Kunda, no
>matter what service these roads will perform, they will not pay off, the
>only
>way out will be to increase road tax and this again will have to affect the
>comsumers. We need roads but we need roads that we can afford, you don't
>take
>big loans to build a road capacity that you don't need and when poverty is
>in
>the increase.
>The APRC regime declared the dead of the 1st republic without been able to
>liberate her self from the shadows of the 1st republic. For example, You
>don't
>just go on building hospitals because the 1.republic did not do so, it is
>much
>more better to have a well thought health programme and with that you might
>know if you even need a new hospital and where. Or else it will just be as
>it
>is, hospitals without drugs or simple necessary equipment. Just take Serre
>kunda as example, perhaps one of the dirties towns in this world, how many
>people are going to suffer and died from maleria in that town this year,
>only
>God knows. Every bloody day when you visit the outpatient at the royal
>Victoria hospital, you are almost convince that there is an emergency
>situation in the country because of the amount of people queuing there.
>Take the building of  schools, they are very many now and you hardly visit
>a
>compound in that country without meeting a half educated school drop out or
>some one struggling to pay his/her school fees. You don't call this
>national
>development, there is much to that. A poor country like Cuba used not more
>than two years to bring illiteracy to one of the lowest in the world. When
>Sankara took over Burkina Faso, the country was more than poor, but theses
>people with the little resources they had, brought illiteracy to one of the
>lowest in the history of the country. Jungle, the amount of loan and grant
>accumulated in the name of the country since the APRC came to power is
>enough
>to do 10 times more than what this government achieved.A  serious
>government
>faced with this serious poverty will never buy a jet fighter, even if free
>they will return it back, let  alone a president with a private plane,
>private
>zoo, two homes etc. It is only self-sacrifice that will be able to bring us
>to
>our dreams of a better Gambia. Go bring all the world industries in the
>Gambia, if the objectives are not for freedom, there will always be
>poverty,
>just look at Nigeria with all the wealth and industries of that country.
>
>For Freedom
>Saiks
>
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>
>
> >===== Original Message From The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]> =====
> >Saiks,
> >
> >You have raised many varied and interesting points on which I shall do my
> >best to shed some more light. First of all, let me tell you that I know
> >poverty to my finger tips and that my knowledge of poverty is from a very
> >close encounter. I did not read about it. I have lived in it. You see
>Saiks,
> >I was born into what you can term a relaticely well-off family and grew
>up
> >seeing what wealth and generousity can do. I also lived through a period
>of
> >living a life of deprivation and seeing how some people repay kindness
>and
> >generousity when you no longer have what yiu used to have.
> >
> >As a kid growing up in Kuntaur (CRD), I have witnessed how dozens of my
> >relatives and friends of my family from the Baddibus, Bakau, Serekunda
>and
> >Banjul would regularly visit or come for holidays. i have also witnessed
>how
> >some would even spend the whole trade season with us. I saw how my late
> >father cared for dozens of them out of relationship and kindness. I have
> >also seen how, within a space of about eight years, he lost almost
> >everything. First, it was a major burglary that left us almost penniless,
> >then a fire that gutted our entire compound, closely followed by the
> >devastating devastating drought of the 70s and the departure of the first
> >Taiwanese mission from The Gambia, when we switched recognisation from
> >Taiwan to China. Saiks, my Dad was a rice and groundnut farmer as well as
>a
> >businessman. Seeing how some folks repaid the generousity of my late Dad
>(He
> >died in 1979) gave me first-hand lessons on wealth, friendship, poverty
>and
> >of dignity.
> >
> >Having said that, let me now turn to the $10 million rural development
> >project that we beginning to implement in the northern half of the
>country.
> >The project involses the laying of about 350 Kms of fibre-optic cable
>from
> >Basse to Barra and completing the loop to Banjul using a digital
>microwave
> >link. The main purpose of doing this is to first of all provide the
> >necessary security for the South Bank fibre in case there is a major
> >catastrophe with it. You know that fibre, not only carries rural traffic,
> >but also national TV and radio broadcasts as well. Secondly, it allows us
>to
> >develop telecommunications on the North bank to the same level as that on
> >the south bank of The river Gambia.
> >
> >I had mentioned sometime back that, access to information particularly in
> >rural areas, is one way of fighting poverty. If our poor rural folks,
>need
> >only travel a few Kilometres and have access to a phone to speak to their
> >loved ones far away in the Greater Banjul rather than travelling dozens
>of
> >kilometres just to make that call, you are saving them both time and
>money.
> >If a poor farmer in Karantaba can call Banjul from Karantaba to inform
>his
> >child that he/she badly needs money rather than borrowing money and
> >travelling all the way to Banjul, only to learn that his/her kid has been
> >trasnferred to say Kiang or some other place, you would be saving him/her
> >and his/her child anguish, time, money and effort.
> >
> >Thirdly, if we agree that education and health are important
>pre-requisites
> >for development in this day and age, and that in both cases the exchange
>of
> >information has a big role to play, then the need to bring that to our
>rural
> >folks is an absolute neccessity. Before you ask me how it would be
>powered
> >when there is no electricity in the rural areas, let me tell you that
>they
> >are normally solar-powered. The rural electrification project, announced
> >earlier, would also come in very handy later.
> >
> >Fourthly Saiks, we all know that most of the rural folks who leave behind
> >their families and come to the GBA do so to find work. If you can provide
> >electricity and access to communications in some of these rural areas,
>there
> >exists a good chance that some light industries may be located there and
> >provide much needed employment. The Kuntaur groundnut mill provided jobs
>for
> >thousands of people in the area until the former inept government moved
>it
> >to Kaur. The result? Kuntaur is now almost a ghost town. The tug boats
>and
> >barges that used to employ people and transport goods very cheaply up and
> >down the river all disappeared. In those days, nobody dreamt of leaving
> >Kuntaur for Banjul, Bakau or Serekunda.
> >
> >Coming to the roads being constructed, I do not know of any that has not
> >been very long overdue. At a time when we are embarking on the Banjul
> >Gateway project which establishes a trade free zone within the airport
>with
> >the possibility of having several industries there, then the need for the
> >dual carriageway linking it to Serekunda makes a lot of sense to me.
>Linking
> >the same airport with the other economic zones of the country such as
>Kerr
> >Serigne, Bijilo, Tanje, Sanyang, Kartong, Gunjur etc, also makes a lot of
> >sense to me.
> >
> >Finally saiks, you seem to think that some of the investments in
> >infrastructure being undertaken are somehow not priority projects. If
>that
> >is your view, you cannot be more wrong. When potential investors come to
>a
> >country and find that most of the essential infrastructures such as good
> >roads, reliable electricity, good communications facilities, peace and
> >security, a reasonably developed human resource base and of course good
> >governance exist, they more likely to consider investing in that country
> >than when they are not available. You see Saiks, a friend of mine in the
> >tourism industry told a few days ago, that two tourists came to The
>Gambia
> >for the first time two years ago and were so smitten with the country
>that
> >they came back again this year. The changes they saw impressed them so
>much
> >that they decided to start up something here. During their stay, they
> >established that potatoes consumed in Gambia, though imported from mainly
> >Holland are actually grown in South Africa.
> >
> >After their return, they came back again after a few weeks but this time
> >with some agronomists. You see, these two tourists happen to be major
> >potatoe farmers. Anyway having established that our soil is indeed very
>good
> >for potatoe farming, they sought and got allocated land for farming
>potatoes
> >for local consumption and export to the sub-region.
> >
> >For a start, they would sink boreholes for irrigation and are likely to
> >start in ernest early next year. They plan to employ a little over 1,000
> >(Over one thousand) full-time farm workers in the first year and hope to
> >employ as much as six thousand within five years. This would have
> >significant impact on the lives of the tens of thousands of people who
> >depend on those workers.
> >
> >As to whether mordernising the air has had much impact on tourist
>arrivals,
> >I do not know. Two things I do know however, are that the constraint we
>have
> >in tourist arrivals are mainly due to the limited number of available
>beds
> >as well as the quality of our product, amongst others. Improve on these,
>a
> >friend told me, and we can double the number arrivals within five years.
> >
> >another thing I do know is that the number of aircraft landings and
> >take-offs have more than trebbled during the past five years. At the
>moment
> >no less than three dozen flights a week take-off from Banjul
>International
> >Airport for various destinations. The recent decision of Afrinat
> >International Airlines to use The Gambia as its hub into West Africa and
> >operating three weekly flights to Newyork from Banjul is a case in point.
>I
> >am sure when they start plying this route the number of flights from the
> >sub-region would drastically increase. This means more jobs for Gambians
>as
> >well as more revenue for the GCAA. Like I keep saying, "There is a time
>in
> >the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough
>to
> >solve (Mike Levitt)". we are surely getting there!!!!
> >
> >Have a good day, Gassa.
> >
> >
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