Joe, Laye and Yusupha, thanks for your contributions to the debate about the plight of Gambian businessmen/women. You raised issues that I can guarantee you the mental midgets could NOT grasp. I say that because as you can see these problems are NOT difficult to solve, yet the morons running our country are NOT even able to articulate these problems, let alone offer solutions. Laye, you broke it down quite well for the government. Tell me this: how can someone that always shouts about having the interest of the country at heart miss these fundamental issues? You would have thought that someone that is honest and smart can implement some of the policies you cited and turn our economy around in no time. But no! What we have back home is morons that know nothing but how to steal from government coffers. Matter of fact, they do NOT even know how to steal, because they left their dirty fingerprints all over the place. So, we have morons. Period. Yesterday I gave the example about the government’s treatment of private hajj-operators. Today, I will use the treatment of Alimenta as an example, since you touched on foreign direct investment and the need for there to be a transparent and conducive regime to ensure that investors repatriate their profits. Thugs led by Baabaa Jobe simply woke up one day, confiscated the property of Alimenta and overnight ruin our most important industry in the country. End result: three years in a row farmers CANNOT sell their products at competitive rates. Alimenta dragged the government to arbitration and the EU had to come to our rescue with a $12 million grant (that could have gone to the farmers directly and NOT to pay damages CAUSED BY Baabaa Jobe). Tell me whether any serious international investor will come to such a climate where they know that thugs can visit them anytime, throw them out of the country and make up bogus charges against them. Whose fault is this? Gambian farmers? Gambians in the Diaspora? Of course we all know that it is the fault of the thugs and the morons running our country. Any serious government can (overnight) solve our ‘Groundnut Problem’. I see Gassama’s pathetic attempts to rationalize Yaya’s irrational rattling. I wonder what gave Gassama the idea that G_L members do NOT know what is going on in the country as we speak and what went on pre-1994. For the hundredth time, I want to tell Gassama that one does NOT have to visit Gambia to know what is going on there. On the contrary, it appears that nowadays when people visit Gambia they come back with twisted lies. All it takes to get the REALITY on the ground is a phone call and an HONEST person on the Banjul end. I will start with the fishing industry. If Gassama has figures, he has NEVER given it to us. I remember specifically asking him for concrete figures and as usual when he is cornered, he unceremoniously pretends that he was not debating and taking up positions he could not back up. Case in point is when we discussed Yaya’s corruption few weeks ago. Now, I want Gassama to tell us in terms of numbers the huge ‘strides’ we made in the fishing industry. How much foreign currency did we earn pre-1994 and how much are we earning now? This man does NOT even understand how that industry works. He betrays his ignorance by talking about the dynamics of the industry vis-à-vis internal sales. Again, there is a simple way of revitalizing this industry. Unlike you, Laye, I do NOT give the mental midgets ideas. Yes! I am guilty as charged. I just criticize them. I want them to mess up so that I will have more to write about. Going back to Gassama, I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I saw his ‘third benefit of the fish plant’. He says: “Fishes are graded according to size and sold by weight”. What the hell is Gassama talking about? People ask him to list serious issues and he tells us something so obvious, it is mind-boggling. Since time immemorial this is how fish is sold at Bakau Market and elsewhere. Talk about scavenging for something ‘positive’ to say about non-issues. I will also tell Gassama what can be ‘faulted’ in what Yaya has been saying about Gambians since he was in High School. We are criticizing an ATTITUDE and NOT some bizarre off the wall comments he made to a journalist. This is NOT the first time Yaya has uttered such rubbish. We ‘fault’ him because he is so NAIVE in his approach to a very serious problem. Instead of doing what he is being paid for by Gambian taxpayers, the moron goes around criticizing those people for something that is NOT their fault. Before 1994, did Yaya start his own business? Did any of the AFPRC/APRC thugs even own a corner store? These morons could NOT even afford to pay rent. They were living off of other people. The uniforms they wore were supplied to them by the government. When Gambians started being enterprising and building their own houses, where the hell were all these morons now talking down on people because they stole power and stole millions of dollars from government coffers? Yaya is being ‘faulted’ because we want him to grow up and tackle serious issues plaguing our sick economy. No one from our side of the debate is saying that ‘capital alone’ is what is stifling the ‘private-sector’. I mentioned our tax regime. I mentioned electricity (by extension, government infrastructure). I mentioned government intervention in the hajj business (by extension, illegal meddling in the private sector). Joe, Yus, Bamba Laye talked about other issues. But trust Gassama to pretend that he cannot read simple English and attempt to distort what people said hoping that no one noticed. The only simple-minded people here are Yaya (that keeps blaming the Gambian people) and the Gassamas of this world that would say anything to be in Yaya’s good books (classic definition of a sycophant). This ‘construction boom’ Gassama keep yapping about. I also noticed Dr. Saine singing the same song the other day. How many houses have Gassama built? Let’s start with that. Again, one does NOT have to be in Gambia to know that houses get built there. That is so easy to figure out that it boggles my mind to see people like Gassama keep talking about that all the time and someone like Dr. Saine listing that as a premiere ‘development’ in the country that ‘Diasporans’ should be impressed with. What is relevant here is for people to ask where ORDINARY Gambians are getting money from in order to build their OWN houses. Does government has policies that help individuals to build their own houses? Are those policies new? Do we need these morons to implement those policies for us? Can ten-year-olds figure out those policies? Don’t just tell me about some houses are being built and we should credit the AFPRC/APRC government for that. Where do these people expect Gambians to live? Do they expect all Gambians to be beggars and if Yaya does not steal money and give it back to them, they should starve to dead? Should we credit the Jawara government for all the houses that were built in the country during the PPP regime? This is such a non-issue. Talk about the government’s loan program (if any) to civil servants to help them build houses. Talk about the millions of dollars corrupt ‘para-statal’ officials give themselves as building advances and prevent lower officials from getting loans. Talk about the fact banks do NOT give out mortgage loans because it makes no financial sense. If this government stays in power and continues with these sick policies, I can guarantee Gassama that the mortgage bank he spoke about would soon close their doors. People that lived in America for a while must have heard about the S&L Crisis. You CANNOT use short-term deposits to finance long-term loans. This is basic banking. Not all Gambians can take a loan, build a house and then rent it out to some expatriate in order to finance your mortgage installments. Soon there would not be enough expatriates. I hope Gassama et al get my drift. If Gambians are not getting the money from government to build their houses; they are not getting the money from banks to build their houses, where are they getting it from? Who is actually financing these houses? Gambians in Spain, Switzerland, Germany, England, America; that’s who. Gassama et al are the ones that imagine things. They hope that people ignore the country and not talk to their folks and honest Gambians. That way, the Gassamas of this world would go around lying about how good life is in the country. Like I keep saying, you scrape Gassama a little on the surface, you are confronted with someone that CANNOT even make ends meet from his salary. The man CANNOT even recognize that something is really rotten with a system whereby you play by the rules (get a good education, work hard, have a small family) and yet still you CANNOT make ends meet, while at the same time you have thugs and morons like Baabaa (Blood Diamond Dealer) Jobe living large and talking down on the people they are stealing from. If you have people like Gassama that cannot even recognize their plight, you cannot expect those kinds of people to fight for poorer (ordinary) Gambians. These people are in denial. Telling lies upon lies. I see Gassama responding to some other mail saying that Yaya et al inherited a bankrupt economy from PPP. This man is simply unbelievable. I must warn him that his boss has made up with PPP and now we have APPPRC. He better watch what he says about his new ‘friends’. But on a serious note, this just shows again what an ignoramus/sycophant we are dealing with. Pre-1994 we had healthy Reserves. Our currency was stronger. Our farmers could sell their goods. Prices of basic commodities (rice, oil, sugar) was lower. The tourist industry was booming. The ‘re-export trade was at its peak. You got trucks lining the streets of Banjul loaded with goods destined for destinations as far as Lagos, Nigeria. We had numerous fishing trawlers licensed to fish in our waters. The streets of Banjul were freshly reconstructed. Gamtel was thriving. Ports, the same story. In short, the country was heading into the right direction until the morons stole power and moved us backwards. I will stop here for now before I am accused of holding brief for the PPP regime. Just thought I set the record straight for Gassama. AFPRC did NOT inherit a bankrupt government. They bankrupt the country by stealing from us and not having the wherewithal to implement sound policies. PPP is gone and will NEVER come back. It is high time APRC face their problems and NOT try to deflect it to another regime. 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 To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~