Ebrima and Dampha,

Ebrima thank you for sending the budget speech. I will read the shallow
budget speech and give feedback. This budget needs to be discussed chapter
by chapter and one will surely do that.


The Struggle Continues!!!
Ndey Jobarteh


>From: Dampha Kebba <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Read the Budget Speech 2001
>Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 12:38:02 -0500
>
>
>Ebrima, thanks for forwarding this to G_L. I just glanced at the lengthy
>document for the first time. Be rest assured that I will study it during
>the
>course of the next weekend and see how this government continues to fail
>the
>Gambian people. Suffice for me to say at this stage that I was not
>encouraged with the little I saw from Famara Jatta. I could not find a
>single sector that the government did not register a decline or failure to
>meet projections. This is pathetic. Knowing these incompetent functionaries
>(Jatta et al), am sure their projections were very modest (conservative).
>So
>it speaks volumes if they say that they did not meet those benchmarks they
>set for themselves. These people did not have anything to offer us except
>misery. What is the point in reporting increased output in groundnut
>production if the farmers are not given a conducive environment to sell
>their nuts? Ebrima, I was also particularly struck by the magnitude of our
>debt burden. This is where such silly economist words like 'staggering'
>should be used. I hope the opposition back home will challenge Jatta to
>itemize this debt burden. Jatta should be asked to account for the almost
>US$200 million that came into the country in the last seven years. May be
>some economists on the List can tell us the rationale behind Jatta's
>decision to use stats from 1992 and not 1994. Jatta should be asked to
>isolate the amount Yaya's government borrowed and explain where Yaya and
>his
>cohorts put that money. US$200 million is a lot of money and I can safely
>predict that Yaya's corrupt government borrowed 80% of the amount. What can
>they show for it? An airport terminal building that is leaking. A
>refurbished state house. A road in the middle of no where ordinary Gambians
>go. The list of silly projects goes on. Instead of solving the nation's
>energy problem, building roads ordinary Gambians can use to go to work,
>building low income houses etc., corrupt civil servants use our scarce
>resources to finance silly trips abroad and collude in building hefty
>foreign bank accounts for Yaya. Ebrima, there is massive fraud going on in
>the country. The major culprits are the likes of Famara Jatta and those so
>called intellectuals behind a mental midget like Yaya. Today, if we
>challenged Jatta, he would not be able to tell us how to manage a viable
>economy in The Gambia. These people have neither the wherewithal, not the
>integrity to run a country with a thug like Yaya at the helm. They are not
>prepared to do what it would take to turn things around. I can guarantee
>that if these people were to stay till next year (which will not happen),
>Jatta will be back with another dismal report. There will be many declines
>and in areas where there are improvements, they will fail to meet modest
>projections. Just how is Jatta going to succeed in reducing both the
>internal and external debt burdens at the same time that they are reducing
>taxes and increasing spending to reduce poverty? Can't happen. Especially
>in
>an environment where there is no incentive for people to be more
>productive.
>Especially also, at a stage when Jatta is telling us that our major sectors
>(agriculture and tourism) are showing declined earnings. Let us for one
>moment probe into how our government services (reduces) its external loans.
>Ordinarily, when a payment is due, Central Bank should use part of our
>reserves (built mainly from grants and loans) to service our external debt
>burden. What our rogue government does, is anybody's guess. So in other
>words, we are borrowing to pay debts. The Central Bank can also get dalasis
>which it would convert to foreign currencies before depositing the money in
>foreign accounts (reserves). This has the dual purpose of helping to build
>up the reserves and also getting rid of excess dalasis in the economy. But
>what they do not tell you is that this money comes mainly from internal
>lenders (commercial banks and SSHFC). So here again, we are borrowing to
>pay
>off debts. Nothing but a Ponzy Scheme. Paying old lenders with money from
>new lenders. Ebrima, it is not every year that we will be able to sell
>Atlantic Hotel and pay some of our debtors. So reducing the internal debt
>burden would tantamount to not paying civil servant salaries. This so
>called
>'internal debt' is just a fancy way of describing the money government gets
>from the sale of treasury bills. In my opinion, this phenomenon is the
>major
>reason why commercial banks cannot play a major role in private sector
>development. Ebrima, private businessmen compete with the government for
>loans from the banks and SSHFC. It is just logical that when that happens,
>the government wins, because it lures the banks with a very high interest
>rate and a guarantee that they will get paid. Why would the banks risk
>lending to a private businessman at ridiculously high interest rates when
>they can get a 19% return from the government that technically cannot go
>bankrupt? Yaya and Jatta cannot solve this conundrum. If they forego the
>money they get from Standard Bank through treasury bills, they will not be
>able to pay salaries and pay down the external national debt. On the other
>hand, so long as Standard Chartered can make a cool 19% from the
>government,
>they will not lend to ordinary Gambians if they are not Amadou Samba or
>Charbel Elhajj. So local lenders cannot support a private sector led
>growth.
>Ebrima, I will leave the tax (fiscal issues) to more seasoned economists or
>to a later day. At this stage I will just say that massive fraud also goes
>on in that domain. Take the cost of gas for instance.  Almost 75% of the
>cost of gas in the country goes to the government in one form of tax or the
>other. The high cost of this essential commodity is one of the major causes
>of our poor stage of development. When Famara Jatta talks about the hike in
>oil prices worldwide, what he does not say is that those price hikes have
>little or no bearing on the price of gas in The Gambia. What he should talk
>about, is the size of the tax slapped on the price of gas that is imported
>into the country. What he also does not talk about, is the over-heads oil
>companies pass on to consumer as a result of bribes paid to finance
>ministers. African countries are addicted to this tax. There is nothing
>wrong in collecting taxes. But, for Heaven's sake, put the money into good
>use. It would have been acceptable to most Gambians if their tax dalasis
>were used to build better roads (as opposed to dead traps) from up country
>to Banjul (rather than from Yundum airport to the hotels). Most people
>would
>also live with their tax dalasis going towards buying better electricity
>generating equipment. But the reality on the ground, is that we have
>incompetent civil servants who spend their days seeking creative means of
>finding trips to go abroad and receive allowances from the government
>rather
>than finding ways to contribute to our national development. Let me hasten
>to add that I do not paint all civil servants with the same brush. Those
>without a trace of integrity know themselves. What we also have, are
>nonentities like Yaya who did not even have a complete high school
>education
>telling professionals what to do. Yaya does not know a darn thing about how
>to run an economy. Under normal circumstances, he should have been relying
>on Famara Jatta to advise him in this field. But apart from the daunting
>task one would face when trying to educate a clue-less moron like Yaya,
>people like Jatta are too scared to think straight. These people have no
>professional integrity. The civil servants at Central Bank and Finance know
>that what is going on is not right. But you will not hear a single dissent
>from these puppets. But they should realize that we are not sleeping. When
>we get rid of Yaya, they will all account for their actions. Jatta will be
>asked to swallow every false promise he gave to the Gambian people. Central
>Bank officials with half a million dalasis loans used to build mansions
>next
>to huts in Kololi and Kotu will be asked to justify why poor farmers live
>in
>huts as their next door neighbors while they use tax payers' money (not
>their salaries) to build mansions. Ebrima. I thank you again for forwarding
>this material. Watch this space after I digest Jatta's report.
>KB
>
>
>>From: Ebrima Ceesay <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Read the Budget Speech 2001
>>Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:31:32 -0000
>>
>
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