"1. How did Mr Jammeh get so wealthy that he could be dishing out trucks, ambulances, money and other goodies left, right and center in the space of only seven years?"

Jobe, according to President Jammeh, his assets are as follows:

The Independent publishes below the full list of properties owned or co-owned by the five aspirants. Yahya Jammeh-APRC (Incumbent) Farms

One farm at Dobong village Foni Kansala District Western Division One bird sanctuary (not yet developed) at Santangba village Foni Kansala District.

Vehicles

(4) personal vehicles (1) Mini truck (1) Pajero (1) 4x4 Mercedes Station Wagon (1) 4x4 Jeep

Jointly owned assets:

The Kanilai Worni family farms with the following components

a) Livestock

(Cattle) - 200 heads of cattle (Sheep) - 55 (Goats) - 75 (Horses) - 9 (Camels) - 9 Donkeys - 4 Ostriches - 9

b) Vegetable garden for women of the surrounding villages, a rice field, a cornfield, fruit trees and a game reserve. The products of the farms are used in funding the Jammeh Foundation for Peace. On this farm in Kanilai are four Agriculture Teachers and two power tillers. (Source - IEC asset declaration, last presidential elections)

In one of its publications of a few months back, Foroyaa questioned the source of Jammeh' "wealth", indicating that President Jammeh's official renumeration as president of the republich was somewhere in the region of D350,000 per annum. This amount multiplied by 7 years gives you approximately D2.5 million.

I understand that he is entitled to per Diem when he travels on certain trips but I do not know how much. I do not also know the number of times he has travelled out of the country since coming to power but by the time of the student demonstrations of April 10th & 11th 2001, some students were complaining that he travelled too much and they put the number of times he had been out of the country at 79. Since then he has travelled several times out of the country but I do not know how many times exactly. But suppose for a moment that he has travelled a total of 100 times since coming to power and was entitled to be paid Per Diem for 50 of those trips and each trip averaging about 5 days at say £150.00 per day. Taking this scenario, one can safely assume that so far he has accrued £37,500 (about D1 million) since coming to power.

So far, I can assume that from official renumerations, he could have been entitled to about D3.5 million.

Jammeh has also been very active in farming on a very large scale with the proceeds of the farm (which are exempt from taxes) going to the Jammeh Foundation for Peace, the source of most of his personal donations. I do not have any idea how much has been produced from his farms but I can guess that it is a lot of money.

Our constitution places no restriction as to how much in terms of gifts or donations that the president can recieve and as such no one, but himself, can say for certain if he had recieved any gifts from anybody or businesses and how much. One thing I know is that the Jammeh foundation for peace has undertaken several fund raising dinners and dances raising over a million Dalasis on each occasion. If you have also been following articles sent to the L recently, you would recall that a few weeks ago the Spanish Palma de Majorca municipal counccil in Spain through the initiatives of one Mr. Kassim Njie donated a total of 10 brand new 70-sitter busses and a 40 foot container of spare parts and foodstuffs to this foundation. The total value of this single donation to the Jammeh Foundation For Peace (not The Gambia Government) was a colossal D14 million. See the statehouse website at www.statehouse.gm and visit the archives for the full story.

You also asked:

"2. Why is Mr Jammeh not talking of limiting the number of times he could run for President, as promised to The Gambian people in the aftermath of the July 22, 1994?"

Jobe,

Jammeh spoke of limiting the terms of the presidency on many occasions during the early days of the coupe and it has also been reported that after the consultations to ammend certain parts of the constitution of the first republic was completed the committee made a "recommendation" that the terms of the presidency be limited to two terms of five years only. These not withstanding, did not future in the 1997 constitution that the majority of Gambians approved in the subsequent referandum. Even if the allegations that this recommendation was removed from the constitution that we approved, a recommendation, no matter how strong it is, is still a recommendation and no government or authority can be compelled to implement a recommendation by force!

Now, my questions:

1. Having established the first university of The Gambia currently with over 750 students enrolled and of which over 75 % of them are under full government scholarship, built dozens of schools, increased primary school enrollment from a little under 40 % to over 80 %, providing free education to over 70 % of school girls from grade 1 to grade 9 all in just 7 years, would you agree with me that the Jammeh administration has done more for the education of Gambians than any administration that we have ever had, whether colonial or otherwise?

2. In addition to the dozens of major and minor health centres throughout the country, the Jammeh administration has successfully built the Fara Feni Hospital, The Bundung Hospital and the Jeshwang hospital, all of which are operational. In addition to this the Bwiam hospital is nearing completion and it was only a few weeks ago that the foundation stone for the construction of a D42 million hospital for Sere Kunda was laid. The infant mortality rate has been reduced from 85 per 1000 live births in 1993 to an estimated 61 per 1000 live births presently and the mortality rate of children under five from 137 per 1000 in 1993 to less than 80 per 1000. Malnutrition levels among children under five have dropped, exclusive breastfeeding is at 34% and life expectancy has also increased from 53 years in 1993 to 59 years now. Having achieved all these in just 7 years, won't you agree with me that the Jammeh administration has done more for Gambians in terms of health delivery than any administration that we've ever had including colonial ones? I await your response for now.

Have a good day, Gassa.