Mr. Saidy,

To be an intellectual is not by a click of a button. It takes many years and resources to become an expert or intellectual in a particular field of knowledge. If one endeavours on one's own without a state's help but hinderance and without the system's help but hinderance to achieve an expert status in a field of knowledge, one will never ever underrate that status. The State or the system that was plotting against the would-be expert may not value or know the value of the expert status. The system may not know how many years and much resources have taken one to become an expert; and thus the system will underprice the expert. worse still, the system out of ignorance of the value of the expert will combine sycophants and fake experts with real experts and price them equally, or sometimes prices for sycophants and fake experts are more equal than that for the real experts. The real experts know their true value, they will not accept a price lower than their market value or lower than the layout costs; if fact, what rationale does it have for one to invest a thousand Dalasi when one knows certainly one can only recover a half of that cost? If  the system, which is here the buyer, refuses to pay for the true value of the real expert, the real expert will go out of business, and in the long run only fake experts will remain in the business. All the expert solutions and ideas will then reduce to a pool of common senses. This is parallel to lemon market and adverse selection taught in undergraduate economics, it is caused by the assymmetry of information. The seller of the second hand goods knows the true value of the goods and may have special inside information about the goods; while, the buyer of the second hand goods will not have the special inside information about the goods and not even know the true value of the goods. The buyers will tend to underprice the goods, and as a result, the sellers of good second goods will leave the market, and only sellers of bad second hand goods will remain in the business. This adverse solution is minimized as the flow of information is increased sysmmetrically. The seller can add guarantees such as money backs and services to maintain the true value of the goods. The buyer can employ the servcies of experts and rating agencies to ascertain the market value of the goods. This information provided by both sides of the contract should be available sysmmetrically and should flow freely. How does this apply to the case of the intellectuals in the Gambia? It is simple. The intellectuals are the sellers and the System is the buyer. the intellectuals should present their track records on writings, researches and works. They should also present their qualications and recommendations from the institutions, where they have been studying or working. The system should employ the servcies of other experts and contact the institutions where the experts have been studying or working to ascertain the true value of the presentations given by the experts. The information generated by  both sides should be available sysmmetrically and flow freely. The solution of the adverse selection is not yet complete. What if the buyer chooses to underprice because he is an agent buyer not the final consumer of the goods, and the final consumer is a blind man or blindly accepts whatever the agent says? What if the system refuses to pay for the  true value of the  real experts and continues underpricing because the constituency for one reason or another cannot have a check on the system? This brings about the problem of moral hazards. It occurs because the agent buyer or the system believes there will be no check on the agency contract at least for a very long forseeable future. The agent will indulge in selffullfillining behavoiurs which will be detrimental to the constituency. What is the solution to the moral hazard problem? the Americans have long decided that a president would be given a maximum of eight years even if he were Bell Clinton, and full stop.

 

Bukhari Sillah