Saiks,

I read you piece on the above with keen interest. It seems it is only misinformed clowns like our fundamentalist friend ( Jammeh's State House Imam) Fatty who fail to see the need for birth controll. The piece below is from the Monday 20/09/99 issue of  '7 Days in The Gambia' on GambiaNet. May be somebody should provide Fatty and his like with statistic that show how many children go unfed daily or die from preventable diseases anually due to povery.

Ah! but then our 'erudite' Imam will seaf through the pages of the Holy Quaran and by some 'devine' acrobatics  prove that you are indeed an enemy of Islam and by extension, the Gambian people, since he is convinced that The Gambia is vertually an Islamic State, according to him.

Take Care!

Kabir.

"GAMBIAN POPULATION GROWTH IS ALARMING" – VICE PRESIDENT NJIE SAIDY

The vice president and secretary of state for health, social welfare and women affairs, Isatou Njie-Saidy has revealed that the Gambia has a high growth rate of 4.2 percent; one of the highest in the world.

Mrs. Njie-Saidy made this revelation, during the opening of a 4-day workshop on the Gambia chapter of the Sahelian Network of Journalists on population and development which ended last Friday at the Independence stadium, Bakau.

She described the situation as alarming and frustrating government efforts in the provision of basic social services to the people. If the growth rate continues, warned the vice president, the Gambian population will double in 16 years from now.

The vice president also highlighted other government efforts on the implementation of population policies, and called on journalists who are the agents of change in the society to have a proper understanding of national population of the country for effective dissemination of population and development messages.

The workshop ended with a ten-point recommendations, urging the government to give journalists more access to official information to facilitate their work on population and development issues.

Also, the government and stakeholders in population and development were also requested to ensure the adoption and implementation of a national communication and implementation policy as soon as possible.