Hamjatta, going back to the subject of the dismal economy the Alliance is going to inherit from the AFPRC/APRC, let me today talk about the horrendous GROUNDNUT SECTOR. Hamjatta, the mental midgets dealt a devastating blow to this industry; in the process rendering DESTITUTE the overwhelming majority of the Gambians. No citizen has to work all year round and have NOTHING to show for it except PRIMISSORY NOTES (‘toilet paper’). As Darboe said, the Alliance Government will ensure that every Gambian that works hard and plays by the rules, has something to show for their sweat. Yaya’s government is one that shies away from its responsibilities. They rendered our farmers DESTITUTE and then turn around and say that it is NOT their responsibility to ensure that our farmers’ groundnuts are bought. Darn right it is their responsibility. This issue alone should convince Gambians to boot these criminals out of office. Months ago, we predicted on G_L that the ALIMENTA DEBACLE was going to cost our people heavily. When this criminal government was falsely accusing Alimenta of ‘money-laundering’, we warned Pap Cheyassin Secka that he was playing with fire. We told the moron to back-off such false allegations or his rhetoric will cost the Gambians a lot of money and would result to nothing but misery for our people. Needless to say, the vermin NEVER listened. Instead, they pursued their ‘self-destruct’ path, preparing to mortgage the lives of Gambian farmers in order to cover up yet another criminal enterprise of Baabaa Jobe. Yes! the nototious Baabaa Jobe. When the vermin saw an opening to bring into the country a Libyan outfit to run our groundnut (most important) industry, he seized the opportunity and orchestrated the expulsion of Alimenta. Yaya personally (without the advise of the civil servants) took certain policy decisions the net effect of which was to make the Gambian taxpayers owe Alimenta 22 million dalasis. Alimenta financed two groundnut trading seasons while the government was still incurring this debt. In the third (consecutive) year, government still sought to borrow more money from Alimenta and when Alimenta refused, Baabaa Jobe and his para-troopers stormed the Denton Bridge facility (owned by Alimenta) and took over the premises and expel Alimenta from the country. Thereafter the fishing expedition began in order to proffer bogus money-laundering charges against Alimenta. Being the ignorant people they are, the vermin did NOT understand how the world groundnut markets worked and how important Alimenta was in that arena. I warned Pap Cheyassin Secka that it was NOT in their interest to alienate Alimenta. Just like it is NOT in the interest of The Gambia to alienate the British and the EU. But the morons NEVER listen. They would even alienate an important world body like the UN in order to please Baabaa Jobe. They did NOT realize that small outfits like Hilo CANNOT make it to the world markets with the Gambian groundnuts if they did NOT have Alimenta’s blessing. At the time we told them and they did NOT listen. By the time they woke up and smelled the coffee, our farmers had failed to sell their groundnuts at competitive rates for the third consecutive year and the Gambian taxpayers were looking at an arbitration proceeding that was later going to cost the country $12 million. And the bleeding did NOT stop there. Because government guaranteed the loans given by the Commercial Banks to ‘groundnut buyers’, government was saddled with a huge bill (millions of dalasis) from the local Commercial Banks to take care of the loans the ‘operators’ defaulted on. So the government that was initially talking about getting away from the groundnut sector, is now using taxpayers’ money to subsidize unscrupulous businessmen that used government guaranteed loans in order to finance their groundnut operations. Our inept government expelled Alimenta that used to bring in their own dollars to finance their operations and even lend money to the government, and replace Alimenta with bogus outfits that had no money but depended on government backing in order to get loans from Gambian Commercial Banks. Yaya’s policies in this industry (like in all other industries important to our people) is a complete failure. Hamjatta, as indicated in the IMF Report, our illegal government realized their mistake in expelling Alimenta and begged the latter to settle the matter out of the arbitration forum. The matter was settled and the EU promised our government $12 million to pay Alimenta off. Hamjatta, this grant could have been put to better use if it were not for the heavy-handedness of thugs like Baabaa Jobe. As a matter of fact, the IMF Report specifically said that the initial disbursement of 5 million pounds sterling from the EU to our government in order to pay off Alimenta, was meant for “reducing domestic debt”. As you rightly pointed out the other day, this is a major problem area for our illegal government. Everyone knows that the only way the criminals are ‘sustaining’ that government is by borrowing money through treasury bills from Standard Chartered Bank and Social Security. If Standard Chartered were to decide tomorrow that they will NOT renew their treasury bills, the government will collapse; civil servant will NOT be paid. And you can take this to the bank. EU and our ‘Development Partners’ recognize this predicament. They wanted to do something about it. But Yaya and Baabaa Jobe will NOT let them. Instead, the morons have to saddle our people with a $12 million legal bill and cost us another EU grant. The sooner we get rid of these people, the better. Hamjatta, in keeping with your brilliant ‘prescriptions’ for our SICK economy, I humbly suggest that the Alliance leaders communicate to the farmers that the next government will ensure that the groundnuts are bought at competitive prices. The new administration will work from day one to ensure that we create a conducive environment (through research, quality control, etc.) to attract a heavyweight (in the league of Alimenta) to market our groundnut in the international markets. Dealing with such companies cuts out the middle-men (such as Hilo) which goes to reducing the margins that would otherwise go into the pockets of the farmers. The Alliance government should tell the farmers that voting for the Alliance means more money in their pockets. When they work and play by the rules, they will be able to feed their families. Hamjatta, thanks again for your tremendous contributions. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------