Though I am not a Christian but could not stop myself from shouting Halleluiah when I read remarks by Gambian president Yahya Jammeh that Gambians are not suffering from food crisis.
Jammeh’s remarks show how least in touch he is with Gambian people over 50 per cent of who are living on less than one US dollar a day as a result of his misrule. The flamboyant dictator does not know hardship and suffering Gambians are going through because he gets too rich. He is surrounded by a bunch of sycophants and selfish people, who tell him ear-pleasing things that everything is alright with Gambian people.
Gambia’s cost of living is sky rocketing left right and centre far beyond the reach of average families. Many today cannot provide decent meals for their families forcing countless male youth to risk deadly sea voyages in search of greener pastures overseas and young girls compelled into prostitution.
Just take a stroll at night to Westfield junction, Kairaba Avenue, Afra FM or Tourism Development Area and you will see what I mean.
Take for instance, if Fatou Kurubally is to cook a decent benachin; 1 kilo of meat and bone is D75.00; 6 cups of rice is D21.00; 3 cups of oil is D21.00, pepper D10.00; tomato, D10.00; tomato paste D10.00; cabbage, D10.00; bitter tomato, D5.00; garden egg, D5.00; yate, D5.00, firewood, D10.00 costing her D189.00. This is just for lunch.
Now if Fatou wants to make breakfast for her family of six, 6 small loafs of tapa lapa bread cost D18.00, 1 egg for each bread gives a total cost of D30.00, oil to fry the eggs costs D7.00 per cup, onion costs D2.00 and pepper D2.00 giving a total cost of D65. Hence breakfast plus lunch would cost her a sum of D254.00. This represents only 2 meals a day.
The above market prices of basic commodities shows that poor Gambians earning a monthly salary of less than D5,000 will have to spend D7,620 a month in order to put decent food on the table. That excludes electric and water bills, house rent, transportation and children's school and book fees.
The much talked about salary increment as part of the civil service reform programme is put on hold indefinitely due to unexpected revenue shortfalls in 2008 and uncertain revenue prospects for this year.
In fact, Gambian economy was recently facing the danger of collapse and Government having to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The country is still heavily relying on foreign assistance and its tourism industry is being badly hit by global financial crisis. Many people working in the tourism industry are being laid off. A large majority of these people are bread winners of their families and you don’t need to be any rocket scientist to know what their families must be going through at the moment.
Gambia remains at high risk of debt distress, even after receiving HIPC and MDRI debt relief, due to high levels of debt in relation to exports and vulnerability to external shocks.
Gambia's Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs, Bala Gaye recently admitted that in the past year, the current account deficit (including official transfers) increased by about 4 percentage points of the Gross Domestic Product (mainly due to the impact of higher international prices of commodities in earlier part of the year. This is by effects of the global financial crisis and associated economic slowdowns in Europe and the US.
Tourism receipts, remittances and re-export trade have all slowed down, and official transfers have been much lower than expected. Gross official reserves of the Central Bank of the Gambia (CBG) dropped to under four months of imports at December end 2008 compared to 5.5 months of imports at end-December 2007.
Jammeh is never honest with Gambian people when it comes to the economy. He always wants us to believe that all is booming when things are not.
The Jammeh regime has to start investing money in the production base of the economy. This will help generate much needed revenues for the country as well as provide employment opportunities to thousands of unemployed Gambians.
Who owns the money?
This week, almost all newspapers in the Gambia have published stories of Yahya Jammeh giving out 29 million, six hundred and ten thousand Dalasi to the Gambian Under 17 team and officials that attended the junior continental championship in Algeria.
You may not care how much was given to the team by President Jammeh but the big question that needs to be answered is who owns the money? Does it belong to Jammeh or the state?
As far as I am aware, the total recurrent budget of the Department of State for Youth and Sports in 2009 is D 21 million. The development budget is equivalent to D6 million. D5 million of the recurrent budget is reserved for sports and sporting activities and D1 million is supposed to be utilised to support the national football team.
Recurrent budget of the Department of Youth and Sports shows that the amount donated was never set aside for the U-17 and must have been diverted elsewhere if it indeed belongs to the state.
If it indeed belongs to the state, then Jammeh should be honest enough to tell us that the money belongs to the state and not him.
On the other hand, if the donation was from Jammeh’s own coffer, then Gambians would need know how he has acquired it in the name of transparency and accountability and transparency.
Jammeh’s earnings as president for the past 14 years cannot give him such monetary wealth. If he is really serious about eradicating corruption in the civil service then he has to take lead in being transparent and accountable to the people.
No comments:
Post a Comment