Well said karamba. The whole process is a Kangaroo court where they have already decided what will happen and are just going through the motions. Jabou Joh In a message dated 12/13/99 9:40:47 PM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes: If there are two things that can be said of the evolving budget that is currently before parliament, it is that it is terrible and it would pass. Is there anything in it that is fundamentally in the interest of the Gambian people? No. But again list members know it is a proposal put together by a leader who has turned government into a cartel. His sole motivation is to bleed this long suffering nation dry of it's meagre resources and hang it's collective carcasses to dry in the sun. He has no qualms about appropriating D60 million to the state house which he has effectively turned into a bureaucratic miasma replete with courtiers dabbling into everything from scholarships to government vehicle monitoring. Of the amount , over D3million is slated to be paid to him as perdiem in the ever-increasing zero value trips he makes to attend parades and have tea with foreign leaders of no consequence to Gambia. If incase you wonder where this staggering sum is going to come from, it is going to mean even less money for very basic things like hospitals and village clinics, education and the rest of the government. I lost a niece this past summer to malaria precisely because Bansang hospital where tens of thousands of people from my part of the country go is now a shell of a hospital with no medicine. Like my family , the people of our country are an expendable commodity when it conflicts the self preservation instincts of the kinds of people that constitute this government. For the most part they are criminals who are not the least bit perturbed by the very glaring problems they are visiting on the people. There is not a single line item on the budget that would benefit the very pressing needs of the people of Ballanghar. But would Fafa Touray who purports to represent them vote for it? You bet he would. These are not serious legislators who are burdened by the need to even contemplate what is remotely in the interest of their people. They have long ago settled into the status of certifiable lackeys who would trade the lives and livelihoods of the very people they are under oath to serve. They come , they sit and they cheer an unelected speaker of the house as he presides over the chamber scrupulously and shamelessly enforcing flawed and undemocratic parliamentary procedures that is designed to stifle the few opposition members who actually want to do good. It is just outrageous to hear the speaker who is not responsible to a single voter or taxpayer since he was handpicked by the president chide lawmakers for objecting to the D60million allocation. Apparently he is a firm believer that the cartel needs to be well funded with the sweat and blood of our people . The finance minister who had responsibilty for crafting the budget displayed characteristic chutzpah that is the hallmark of this administration. No he wouldn't answer questions about $52 million contracted from Taiwan. Yes the president needs D60 million and infact the government would open three more embassies even as the existing ones can hardly afford faxpaper. He lashed out at a lawmaker who labelled his proposal as uninspiring challenging him to produce figures. Well human and economic indicators point to the miserable state in which people of Gambia find themselves in. Unless the minister is interested in a tortured differentiation between misery and misery-lite , I think his anger at the lawmaker was bogus and intended to mask the utter failure he embodies. He furthered his wrath on the business community over their legitimate complaint about a burdensome government regulation that they believe hampers their business which accounts for the number one revenue earner for the government. He retorted that they would have to endure the regulation or leave. Leave and go where? These are citizens of the country who worked hard and played by the rules to build successful businesses. At the very least they ought to be nurtured to allow them to expand the vital reexport trade. They certainly should not be hectored by a government whose collective leadership could not make a success out of legume stall in Albert market. So the fiscal 2000 budget as the ones before it has everthing in it for Yahya Jammeh and his cronies. The rest of the country would have to scavenge a living and make up their mind as to how long they are prepared to accept being wronged Karamba >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------