Jobe, I recognize I had promised not to come back to these topics, but I believe I have to break that promise. It is simply more important to me that my friends understand my point of view than to look after your welfare. I decided to reproduce our earlier exchanges and then address the issues raised because I believe if you have it in front of you, you will be less confused. 1." Let us look at your 'justifications' today. I hope you realized that what you have back home is a failed agricultural policy. Gambians are hungrier now than they were six years ago. And the bottom-line is food in people's mouths. You claimed that rice production has increased. How come the price of a bag of rice has not decreased? Economics 101. Supply and Demand. If Gambians are producing more rice, it means that we need to import less rice, i.e. demand for imported rice decreases. Why is that decrease in demand not reflected in the price of a bag of rice?" Dampha, a failed agricultural policy will not make it a priority to provide farmers with inputs such as fertilizer, give loans to farmers, provide them with seeds, provide them with tractors, combine harvesters, watering holes for their livestock etc. That rice production has gone up siginificantly is not in doubt. The reason that its impact is not felt, is because of our increased population. You also know for a fact that rice production projects under the Jawara regime failed abysmally." 1. My point was and remains, Despite all the things you claimed the AFPRC/APRC has done, our people are still Hungrier than they were pre-1994. They are Poorer than they were pre-1994. Rice is More Expensive than it was pre-1994. You think the problem is not bad agricultural policies but people should be asked to stop making babies; i.e. we have a population problem that everyone should tackle. The APRC government is not solely responsible for the plight of our people when in comes to malnutrition. I think you made my point that your government CANNOT solve this vital problem. Despite your policies, we are going backwards and not forward. 2." Ah!! We were busy making babies. If you figured out that problem, why did you not fix it? The problem is not population growth. Farmers that are producing the rice cannot even feed themselves let alone provide for the growing urban population. You see, there is a disconnect between your policies and claimed 'successes' and the plight of Gambians." That we were busy making babies is an understatement. How else can you account for the more than doubling of our population in less than 2 decades? You see, to fix this problem is our collective responsibility. One way is to educate our folks about child spacing, refrain from irresponsible sexual behaviour, early marriage and encourage the education of the girl child. 2. Like all governments without ideas, they try to shift the blame to defenseless people. If government cannot come up with comprehensive policies to feed the people, it is the people's fault for having children. Blame the victim. Can you attribute all our population growth to child-bearing? Where does immigration feature? But before we shift to a discussion about population policies, let us address the issue at hand about our agricultural policies. Can you tell us whether there was a time in post-Independent Gambia when our farmers were self-sufficient for food; a time when their families were small enough for the rice they produce in The Gambia to feed them? This is not about population growth and 'blame the people'. If your inept government was able to ensure the purchase of other agricultural products (like groundnut) at competitive prices, our farmers will have enough money to buy rice and supplement what they already produce. If your inept government had good economic policies that will strengthen and not weaken the dalasi, the price of rice and other products (like fuel) will not go up and hurt our already poor farmers. But I do not expect you to identify and tackle those problems. It is easier for you to 'blame the victims' your inept policies already rendered destitute. 3."You are simply not doing things that alleviate the poverty of the average Gambian. Whenever we make a false step forward, you take us two tangible steps backwards. Are Gambians not better off when they could purchase a bag of rice for less than 150 dalasis?" Poverty alleviation is no easy thing. The Jawara regime did very little to develop our economy or its mismanagement. This regime is trying to rectify that by giving our rural folks agricultural inputs, digging them wells, giving them easy access to education for their children as well as easy access to medical and health facilities. 3. Here we go again. The Jawara regime. If you guys cannot show how you significantly did better than the Jawara regime, then who needs you with your callousness? Who needs a child murderer that will simply remove one inept government and steal its policies and use a more inept civil service to implement those policies? If poverty alleviation is too difficult for you people, then move away and let the real pros do the job. We do NOT need you with your corruption and callousness. 4."I am glad that you pointed out that most of the success in our agricultural sector is attributable to natural causes. The rains have nothing to do withYaya. What Yaya had a hand in, was and still is, a dismal failure. We thank God that He Blessed us with good rains the past few rainy seasons. What can we show for God's Great Grace? Rice harvests that cannot feed farmers all year round. Mountains of groundnuts Yaya could not help sell. Our farmers are in a precarious position. They had always produced rice. It is just that the rice they produce cannot feed them year round. Previously, they would sell their other products (like groundnuts) and buy rice for the rest of the year. Now they cannot do that." I never attributed recent improvements in agricultuiral yield to rains. What I said was that we cannot only depend on farming methods that only rely on the seasonal rains. This is because we have a huge population and very limited fertile land. Since our staple food rice and the available swamps to grow it is limited, we must maximize yield by investing in irrigation systems. 4. Well, here is the assertion from your piece that I was reacting to when I said that you attributed some of the successes in the agricultural sector to natural causes: Kebba Jobe: "Our farming IS mainly dependent on the seasonal rains even though irrigation, which was introduced in the early 70s by the Taiwanese, before were booted out of the country, country could have helped significantly." Emphasis mine. Please note the tense in which you spoke. Unless you want to tell us that this was a typo on your part, I cannot see how you can say that I was misquoting you when I said that your are speaking about the current period. 5."One of the first ill-advised and dubious deals of the AFPRC government when they took over was to confiscate the rice of businessmen like Charbel Elhajj and start selling their (AFPRC) own rice from Denton Bridge and other locations. This was nothing but a dirty ploy AFPRC learnt from their counterparts in Sierra Leone (Strasser et al). These bandits stole money from Social Security to finance this dubious project. When it is all said and done, all these monies will be accounted for. Did that policy have the effect of reducing the price of rice? Absolutely not. This government cannot do anything to reduce the price of rice. They are approaching the problem from the wrong angle. The commitment and the political will is not there." I am lost for words. What on earth are you talking about? 5. What I was talking about was: "This government cannot do anything to reduce the price of rice". They tried selling rice from money they looted from Social Security and they failed. Now they claimed that they have made marked improvements in the agricultural sector and they still cannot reduce the price of rice. I hope you understand me this time. I hope when you are lost for words next time, you will also have the decency to point out that your speechlessness is due to the fact that you are trying to defend the indefensible and NOT because I did not make my point clear. 6."Jobe, have you pondered on the idea whether it is cheaper and more reliable to import than to produce rice in The Gambia? We have a vision-less moron leading us and I refuse to give them ideas to move the country forward. Just keep talking about irrigation and rains we cannot bank on." The reason imported rice is cheaper is very obvious. We have not been producing enough, our farming methods are very primitive and we've been very busy making more and more babies. More over, even if locally grown rice is more expensive people will still consume it. Whatever amount of rice that is substituted for imported rice, saves us much needed foreign exchange. 6. I think you totally missed my point here. But that's okay. You always accuse me of being narrow-minded and insinuate that you look at the bigger picture. Herein you showed that you are confusing the roles. What is the point in saving foreign exchange (through importing less rice) just to spend that money to buy a tractor that will help produce groundnuts we cannot sell? The big picture I want you to look at and I was addressing the other day, was whether you pondered that in the larger scheme of things, it might be more cost effective to import rice than to produce it in Gambia? In other words, does it make sense to use precious foreign exchange to buy tractors and irrigation equipment and fertilizer and use precious land and labor to produce something we can buy cheaper outside? You see my point? Calculate the opportunity cost of rice production and contrast that with what we can spend to bring rice to our villagers. 7."Moving to the groundnut sector, try touting APRC agriculture and economic policies to the farmers that cannot sell their nuts. Try telling us about the 'success' of your policies when we just learnt that government coughed up $12 million to compensate Alimenta for illegally booting them out of the country, thanks to thugs like Baba Jobe. Try talking to those farmers that still have Hilo promissory notes in their hands." If you are honest with yourself, the problem of marketing our agricultural produce did not start with Alimenta problem. The cooperative and GPMB both failed the Gambian people abysmally. You know it, I know it and even the mad man in the street knows it. 7. Blame Jawara again. It was not Jawara that used Baba Jobe and his thugs to boot Alimenta from the country. It was not Jawara that is costing the Gambian taxpayer $12 million government is paying to Alimenta. Since you are so good for the country, why did you not solve the mess created by Jawara. I thought that was what you stole power for. I am honest with myself all right. It is just that I do not look at the past to justify my present failures. Does it make sense to you to bring up 'Coops' in this discussion when the government's major buyers this year (Hilo) is using characters like Mod Dibba to run the groundnut industry? Again, if all you can do is rethread PPP people and PPP ideas and policies, then we do not need you to lead and slaughter defenseless Gambian children. 8."What about groundnut farmers that cannot feed their children two square meals a day and take them to school and hospital because they have not seen a single 50 dalasis in the past two months? As Hamjatta and Saul try to point to you, the reality on the ground does not support your contention that Yaya is good for us. We are POORER under his watch than we were six years ago. Price of rice (we need to feed our families) has gone UP. Price of groundnuts (we need to sell in order to buy rice) has gone DOWN. The Dalasi is weak compared to the currencies we use in order to import our staple foods. In short, what God has given us in terms of good rains, the Devil (Yaya) has taken away from our farmers in terms of corruption and bad economic policies that will DEVALUE the money in our pocket (if we are lucky to sell our groundnuts or get a government job) and INCREASE the price of food." Dampha, the hardship faced by the people of this country did not start today. You know for a fact that the seeds of these hardships were sown and nurtured by the irresponsible policies of the PPP government that you are ready to defend at any cost. We are just reaping the harvest. 8. I am not ready to defend the PPP policies at any cost. I have no vested interest in the PPP record. I am not stupid enough to dwell in the past when we have a child murderer loose in our midst. Having said that, I will not allow you to distort the PPP record in order to make Yaya look good and help him stay in power. If you lie about the PPP record and give Yaya credit he does not deserve, you will hear from me. When will you quit this whining about PPP causing all the problems in our society? When you morons knew that you cannot solve the PPP mess, why did you steal power from a democratically elected government and would murder innocent Gambians just to stay in power? 9."As far as fisheries is concerned, the industry has also suffered under Yaya's watch. It is a blatant lie to say that the industry "has never been given the attention it deserved until now." Do the names NPE, SeaGull, Boto Manjang, Tanje, Brufut, ColdStore, 'Ganaw Marche, both in Banjul and Bakau ring a bell to you? Why this selective amnesia when it suits you? Do you know how many millions of Dalasis the PPP government pumped into NPE via Commercial Bank? Do you know the incentives the PPP government gave Okran to bring fisheries from Ghana to Gambia? Do you know the number of trawlers we had pre-1994? Did you compare the number of people employed in these trawlers pre-1994 to the current figures? Go and ask real professionals in the industry about the dismal state of this industry. All you were talking about again were pending implementation of projects stolen from PPP." If you agree that investment in the fisheries sector is good, viable and was strongly supported by the previous government, why did it fail completely? Where is Seagull? What is in Tanje, Brufut or Ganaw Marche? 9. It failed because Yaya stole power from a democratically elected government. You said the industry was never given the attention it deserved. I debunked that by giving you examples of cases where government actively encouraged the industry and I showed you that we had a thriving fishing industry. Why did you not say that I was lying about my examples and state your case? For instance, did NPE not exist during the Jawara regime? Did Seagull not come to Gambia during the Jawara regime? Was Albert Market and Bakau Market short of fish supplies during the Jawara regime? Was Brufut and Tanje short of fish supplies during the Jawara regime? These were the points I was making. Address these in light of your assertion that the PPP regime neglected this industry. When you do your analysis, give us statistics about the number of trawlers and the number of Gambians earning foreign exchange as a result of working on those trawlers. Address concrete issues and quit dodging the issues and blaming everything on PPP. 10."I hope you do not expect the PPP people or the current Opposition to get loans from Taiwan and implement these projects. Yaya stole power from them. If his government does not implement these projects, who do you want to implement them? Currently, we have less Gambians earning foreign exchange because they are fishing in trawlers belonging to Senegalese and Nigerians and Ghanaians." The PPP people did not implement the projects, the opposition cannot implement them because they not in office, so the APRC government, in office, is implementing them. I have no problems with that. Do you? 10. What I have a problem with is you blaming people for APRC failures. They are implementing policies wrongly or implementing the wrong policies. When they fail, you try to blame PPP or the current Opposition. That is why I told you that it was the duty of APRC to build roads and schools and hospitals and feed our people. It is not for Jawara to ensure that our farmers' groundnuts are bought seven years after power was stolen from him by Yaya and his cohorts. I have to remind you of that fact if you try to blame Jawara for APRC failure in the groundnut industry. If you also want to disqualify the current Opposition from office because Yaya built some schools, I have to remind you that Ousainou Darboe, Sidia Jatta and Hamat Bah, are not in a position to build schools in the country. The criteria to judge them from would be, had they been in Yaya's position, would they be able to build more schools? I have a problem with how you dishonestly take credit for some projects and cowardly shift responsibility for the failure of other projects. When the going is good, you say that Yaya is implementing all these projects, he deserves all the credit and he deserves to continue to lead because Darboe is not implementing projects. When the going gets tough, you say it is Jawara's fault. Be a man and accept responsibility. 11."We have always had a healthy supply of fish. We exported fish even during the Jawara regime. Remember? " So what? Doesn't it make any sence to you that improving the productive sector of our economy is still a necessity? 11. You see this is partly why I said that you perhaps did not understand the points I was making against your 'justifications'. When I made the above statement, I was pointing out to you how ridiculous your contention was that Yaya is saving us foreign currency through his 'fisheries policies'. You remember your argument? I was trying to show you that we have always EXPORTED fish. We are not saving any significant amount of foreign currency because of Yaya's policies. I challenged you earlier on to give us figures and not just empty rhetoric and speculation. Do you see how absurd your response is when looked at in light of what I was saying? What make you think that I do not think that improving our productive sectors is a good thing? Certainly not the piece you quoted. The piece you quoted was debunking a lie you told that because of the improvements Yaya made, we are spending less money importing protein-based foods. I explained to you that we were not importing fish. We were exporting it. That does not mean that we should not endeavor to export more. It is your bogus justification that I had a problem with. 12"As far as the energy sector is concerned, the facts on the ground speak for themselves. It is already pitch-black. Putting wool over people's eyes will have no effect in blinding people. The moron has made several promises and failed. So long as he has his generator at the state house and there is electricity in Kanilai, he does not care about the rest of the country. You are darn right when you noticed that energy is very important in economic development. Ask the hotels how much money they spend buying fuel for their generators. Ask the Gambian families that lost their appliances and their houses because of your despicable power supply. Again, your government does not have the political will and the wherewithal to solve our energy problem. So long as we have thugs like Yaya, Baba Jobe, Tarik Musa, Amadou Samba lining up to fatten their bank accounts, our energy problem will not be solved. The importation of heavy equipment like electricity generators is Yaya's golden chance to receive bribes." Here you go again. Who pitched us in this darkness in the first place? Do you remember OJ's short stint as finance minister, I believe it was in 1990/91? Does K1 generator from Japan ring a bell? 12. Like I said before, you can say whatever you want about the PPP, I do not hold brief for them. I will not tire reiterating my point that when you vermin knew you could not supply the electricity PPP messed up, why did you steal power from PPP and continue to harass and murder Gambians to remain in power? Instead of addressing the current corruption in the country; instead of addressing Yaya's failed promises in this sector; instead of addressing the heavy-armed tactics of dubious Gambians like Amadou Samba and Baba Jobe in this industry, you decided to dwell in the past. Rather than talk about AFPRC/APRC's lack of wherewithal and political will to solve the problems in this industry; rather than talk about the bribes changing hands in this industry as we speak, you want to smear OJ. Be my guest. I am just glad that OJ is not running for office. Gambians are smart enough to figure that you cannot hide behind the PPP record. Be men and defend your record. 13."Finally I want to also take issue with your assertion that our economy has been predominantly tax-based. As I understand it, what our governments collect from taxation is lot less than what we receive in terms of loans and grants. Just this year Famara Jatta revealed that a staggering 90% of the financing of his poverty alleviation program was coming from loans and grants; not from taxes. So I do not understand your claim. Granted, the government makes a lot of money taxing fuel and farmers, but the money received from taxation is less than the money we get from both internal(treasury bills) and external loans and grants. Please give us the figures on where the government gets the money to finance its projects; taxation, loans and grants." If you don't agree that our economy has been predominantly tax-based, let me rephrase it this way. Our economy has been predominantly tax and begging-based. How about that? 13. That is better. Don't lie about the source of the finance for our projects. It is very important that Gambians know where the money comes from. That way, they can decide who the best person is that can get Gambia the money. You see why unlike you I would not just casually brush that issue aside. The source of these funds is one of the single most important issues facing our nation. APRC cronies know that. The moron himself knows that. Why do you think he tries to confuse the issue by bringing in phony concepts such as 'Allah's Bank'? He knows that if Gambians figure that he is not the best person to attract funds for us, they will get rid of him. We all know we are not self-sufficient. We need to beg and borrow. That is the reality. Question then arises, is Yaya the best beggar and borrower? Absolutely not. For starters, the little we get, he always tries to get his cut. If he gets a $35 million from Taiwan for The Gambia, he sends his cohorts to Switzerland to deposit $3 million in his personal bank account. Who needs that type of borrower? Who also needs a beggar that goes around alienating the most powerful countries in the world? It is very important that Gambians understand that 90% of the financing for our poverty alleviation program comes from loans and grants. We need a smart and an honest borrower (that will not steal from us) and a polite beggar (that will not threaten to bury his citizens six feet deep and slaughter innocent children and attract the imposition of sanctions from civilized nations). We do not need an uncouth, semi-literate moron that only knows how to steal from the poor citizens and open Swiss Bank accounts. 14."As far as the re-export trade is concerned, I would be interested to see your exhaustive analysis. You just mentioned it in passing. I hope you are not insinuating that it picked up during APRC. My reading is that since 1994 there are less vehicles plying between Gambia and Mauritania, Senegal,Bissau, Conakry, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina, Ghana and even as far as Nigeria. Please enlighten us when you tackle this vital sector of our economy. Show us how Yaya improved this sector." Check it out. It has been dealt with. 14. Well, I will check it out. I hope I will see where you told us that over the years, we have re-exported more than we used to during the Jawara era. Everything I have seen so far suggests that we were re-exporting MORE during the Jawara era. 15."Jobe, I forgive you for your gullibility in regurgitating these IMF and World Bank figures and thinking that all is good because the Washington Economists say so. If you were here last year you would have seen what me and Hamjatta had to say about these figures and how to analyze them. If you understood how this data is collected and also understand the time frame within which IMF officials work when they visit Gambia to work on these figures, you will know how meaningless these figures are to the poor farmer in Kiang or the taxi driver in Serrekunda. IMF and World Bank accept any garbage they are fed by the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, respectively. Most of these Washington officials care less about how our economies are performing. All they care about is the size of their debt portfolios and whether they can travel to these so-called Third World countries and live in fancy hotels. For the consumption of my dear Dr. Jones, I am saying most, not all IMF and World Bank economists." Dampha am glad that the word bank and IMF are so gullible that we can feed them garbage and receive loans in return. And if the loan repayment becomes unsustainable, get debt relieve. But why didn't the PPP figure this out? I have learnt a lot. Thank you. 15. PPP figure what out? That IMF and World Bank swallow any garbage they are fed by our government? PPP again. Do you know anything about these consultations with these Bretton Woods Institutions? The PPP regime was very successful with these institutions. They got loans from them. What are you talking about? Do you not know that the same Central Bank officials that used to go to IMF during the Jawara regime are still going to IMF during this regime? See why I tell you that you do not know what you are talking about? Nothing changed apart from the murders and callous corruption. Same civil service if not worse. You missed my point totally. I gave you tangible examples of garbage the IMF bought from our government about the April Massacre. If you want to debunk the point I was making, you should vouch for the authenticity of those figures our government supplies to IMF. But how can you if you do not understand how the figures are compiled? Tackle the point I made about the reporting of the April Massacre. Was that not garbage from our country? Did IMF query the garbage? That is how you debunk what I was saying. Don't veer off to PPP again. They are history. 16."Jobe, unlike you, I know how the game is played. I know where these figures come from. As I keep saying, my war is with Yaya. I do not seek to destroy innocent civil servants that do not work actively to propagate Yaya. I will let them continue to enjoy their cozy jobs and per diems. It is Yaya and people like you that actively support child murderers that I am after." Me? Not a chance. 16. We will see about that, won't we? Time is the best arbiter here. 17."Moving on to the sectors you want to discuss today, I noticed that you have shifted from your earlier posture of trying to make the Jawara record an issue. That is an improvement." Dampha, the Gambian economy of yesteryears and today are inextricably linked. Jawara put us in this mess in first place and there is nothing that you can say to convince me otherwise. 17. Link the economies all you want. But again, do not dishonestly claim credit for Jawara projects and cowardly blame Jawara for your failures. Make an honest comparative analysis. 18."I realized you did not have much to credit the AFPRC/APRC with in our Financial sector. The figures you gave us about deposit levels are irrelevant to the AFPRC/APRC record. Your analysis spanned from 1985-1995." On the contrary, I give much credit to the AFPRC/APRC for arresting the worsening condition of our economy. My analysis spanned from 1983-1999. 18. I guess I addressed this point earlier on. You missed what I was saying. But herein you also told another lie. Our economy worsened as a result of the takeover, not the other way round. Let me give you a clue and refer you to our debt burden over the years. AFPRC/APRC borrowed billions of dollars on our behalf and have little to show for it. Also look at the deteriorating dalasi. The dalasi is weaker than it was in 1994. Also look at the employment figures. Government employs less Gambians than it used to. Also look at the earnings of the farmers (bulk of our people). Farmers are earning less now than they used to earn pre-1994. Also look at the price of rice. It is more expensive than it used to be. Fuel is more expensive than it used to be. List goes on. After looking at these few areas, come back and argue that Yaya fixed what Jawara messed up. 19."So it is conceivable that savings continue to go up in 1995. But this was mainly stolen money. The real money that was saved during the Jawara era and the money that made up the bulk of the figure you cited, came mainly from aid agencies (like USAID) that were operating in the country. Ask your sources at Standard Bank. Some of the domestic savings also came from parastatals like Gamtel, Social Security and Ports. These legitimate savings went down and not up during Yaya's watch. Those are the figures we are interested in. Don't ride on PPP's record." Why can't you, for once be honest and accept some facts when they are glaringly clear? The PPP record on the economy is nothing to boast about. 19. I don't know what facts you are asking me to accept. Well, the same people that were running the Central Bank are still running it. They had better praises from IMF during the Jawara regime than this regime. I suggest you talk to them and tell them that they did a dismal job for Jawara. I hope you are not suggesting that these people that ran the economy pre-1994 (Famara Jatta included, although he was not at the Central Bank) suddenly became smarter and less corrupt because of their association with the moron. Deal with the current issues and quit trying to score cheap points on the old regime; points you cannot even back up. I just showed you how the ordinary Gambian got worse off under Yaya's economy despite all your talks about 'projects'. 20a."When you said that there never existed any commercial courts or arbitration office, I can only conclude that you are either engaged in semantics or you are exhibiting a deep ignorance of what you are talking about. What do you understand a commercial court or an arbitration office to mean? A building called a commercial court or an arbitration office? Do you know that even in the U.S. most arbitration proceedings are conducted at the offices of private lawyers. There are certain entities like the World Bank's ICSID and the American Arbitrators' Association that have offices that they rent out to private litigants that want to use the rules of these arbitration bodies to govern the resolution of a dispute. There is no such thing as an arbitration office per se. You can conduct an arbitration anywhere the arbitrators and the litigants want. Most of the commercial disputes that arise in Gambia are governed by arbitration rules of bodies that are outside Gambia. The arbitrators of those bodies also live outside Gambia. Almost invariably, the parties to these disputes even if they are Gambian would have chosen a forum other than Gambia to arbitrate their dispute. Take the government's case against Alimenta. ICSID rules were used to settle that dispute. The arbitrators were not Gambian. One of the parties was not Gambian. How would an 'arbitration office' in Gambia feature in this equation?" You have answered yourself below. Please read on. 20b."'Commercial Courts' are also courts that hear commercial disputes. You see how ignorant your statement is? Gambian courts hear commercial disputes everyday. We do not need a special court house with the sign 'commercial court' written at the door. I hope that is not what you meant. If you mean that we need judges specialized in just adjudicating commercial disputes, that is perhaps understandable. Then again, the commercial docket in The Gambia is not that big to warrant specialist judges." Dampha, that we are signatories to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICID), the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the Islamic Cooperation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC) are not news to me. But since you want more clarification on the matter, I'll give it. What I meant was government will ensure that a "comprehensive judiciary system that gurantees a fair and expeditious settlement of disputes" is put in place. In other words tribunals that only deal with commercial issues will be introduced in our judiciary. 20. I am glad that you shifted from your earlier position that there never existed commercial courts or arbitration offices in the country. Now what you are talking about is that we need a specialist court that will ONLY handle commercial disputes. So I at least got you to quit pretending that there were no commercial courts in the country and Yaya is going to introduce them to us. We have always had commercial courts; i.e. our judges hear commercial cases. Why did you not address the substantive point of the discussion after wriggling out of the semantics? Address the issue of whether we need a specialized judge to oversee a relatively small docket when compared to the criminal docket and the plight of the prisoners without trial languishing at Mile 2. Is it wise for us to pull away a judge from deciding on the liberty of our people to go and decide commercial disputes? Our problem in this arena has more to do with the general lawlessness in the society than whether the commercial docket is moving fast enough. What use is a fast docket to Alimenta if Baba Jobe will move in with thugs to run them out of the country? What use is a fast docket to ordinary Gambian litigants if those foreign judges are busy accepting bribes and refusing to rule against the government in important cases? Let us talk about the substantive issues. And I don't know what MIGA has to do with arbitration. My point was, all the offices of the private lawyers back home can serve as arbitration offices. The Chamber of Commerce can rent out space for the conduct of arbitration proceedings. Help me to understand what you mean by Yaya is going to introduce an 'arbitration office'. What does that have to do with Gambia being a member of ICSID or MIGA? Again, what I was challenging was your use of vague language to pretend that Yaya was going to introduce in the country something that is vital but NEVER existed in the country. 21."As far as the increased number of commercial banks are concerned, I would only point out to you that the banks you mentioned did not first come to Gambia after 1994. Some of these banks were in the works long before 1994. The Islamic Bank did not just appear in the scene in 1994/95. Ask your sources of information to tell you about the application process of these banks. Their commission have very little to do with Yaya and his cohorts." Dampha, how about the First International Bank (FIB) or the Gurantee Trust Bank Gambia limited (GTB). Were they also in the pipeline before 1994? 21. I am not in a position to tell you that. You are the government insider that is touting those 'projects' as Yaya inventions. Pick up the phone and call Central Bank and ask your sources. I trust you will have the integrity to report to us whether those banks were in the pipeline pre-1994. I would have thought that you will make the necessary inquiries to avoid giving us a false impression. But if you insist, I can also pick up the phone and call Banjul to find out. 22."What can I say about the re-export trade and tourism? No amount of spin can cover the obvious. Why did you not discuss why the British had that travel advisory? It was because a bunch of bandits hijacked our country. You seriously believe people will buy this garbage about the 'foot and mouth' disease? When did that happen? It is the lawlessness in the country and silly tax and tariff regime that killed the tourist industry and the re-export trade. Mental midgets like Yankuba Touray cannot do a thing about that. They can jail 'bumsters' all they want, but that will not wipe out the lawlessness in the country." Some of the issues you raised here are irrelevant to what was saying. All I attempted to do was to highlight how volatile the industry is. 22. You also attempted to attribute false reasons to the failures of those industries. For instance you think our tourism problem was partly caused by the 'foot and mouth' disease outbreak in Britain. You just expect us to swallow that garbage and not point out that the coup was the major cause of our problems? 23."Finally, I will just point out that because Yaya stole money from the people and bought a Mercedes SUV and drives it in Kanilai, does not mean that people in Kanilai are not poor. Because Famara Jatta cooks up bogus trips to go abroad and earn per diem and drive a government owned vehicle to so to grocery stores, does not mean that Gambians are not poor. You might set your eyes to these token and silly 'luxuries', but we are more concerned by the fact that there are people in Kiang that do not see a single 50 dalasi note in two months." Thank you for this invaluable piece of information 23. I am glad I made you to become more sensitive to the plight of our most vulnerable people (the poor farmers that cannot sell their crops or are selling them at prices lower than previous years'). Jobe, if we recognize that these people need our help, Gambia will be a better place. It is better than focusing on shallow things like Famara Jatta driving a government vehicle to go to a supermarket and Yaya riding on a Mercedes SUV. The fact that people are stealing money and living large in the urban area, is nothing to brag about. You brag about that, you just breed hostility. Ask your boy Yaya about what these mirages you were propagating do to weak minded Gambians like the moron himself. It makes some people to turn out to be hateful and jealous individuals suffering from an acute inferiority complex. People like you should have learnt from the PPP era and not flaunt ill-gotten gains. But what did we have? You boasting about the fancy vehicles and the supermarkets. Do you know the message you send to your children when you boast about Yaya and your kid later finds out that the moron did not get what he got through hard work? The moron stole power from us. Did not finish school. Never paid his debt back to society. Never puts in an honest day's work. Do you know the lesson we teach our children when we tell them that child murderers are better than us? We must also consider the message we send our folks when we boast about Famara Jatta's mansion when we know for a fact that his honest salary cannot build him that house. I am glad you got the message. I hope you practice it by instilling good values in your children. 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