Dear editor,
I really don’t know what the president was talking about in this interview. For me, the interview is a confirmation of the wrong man in the wrong job. The president is comparing two different lives that are the opposite of what he is supposed to be doing and talking about as the president of The Gambia.
President Barrow has not still grappled and come to terms with the enormous economic development challenges facing the Gambian people and how to get on top of that. I don’t know what are the similarities between the personal life struggles of the individual and the steps that the president ought to take to provide public services for the people and improve their living standards?
A country is different from an individual and the steps that the government has to take to turn around the lamentable lack of economic development in the country.
The economic development circumstances of the individual are different from how to develop the national economy, provide public services and improve the living standards of the people. President Barrow is still the same accidental president who became president of The Gambia in December 2016.
He has no recognition of the political leadership web that he has to weave to turn around the economic development fortunes of The Gambia. President Barrow is your average Joe Public – a middle of the road dull ball who was wrongly comparing apples and oranges in his interview.
Personally he comes across as a nice guy but he’s definitely not the right person to be leading The Gambia. The question facing any Gambian president is that are you going to blindly follow the diabolical economic development policies handed down by the “donors and the development partners “ or are you going to mix and match and pursue the real economic development policies that’ll generate national development and prosperity for Gambians.
That’s the most important question that President Barrow has failed to prepare for and he still doesn’t get it. And it’s not just president Barrow; just take a listen to any of the unprepared potential presidential candidates of The Gambia and the kind of ridiculous economic development ideas they are married to.
You just cannot make things up. Darboe has screwed up The Gambia’s political transition. And that has alienated a lot of Gambians. But that’s not a reason to rally around a president who has no ideas about how to develop the national economy and improve the living standards of the people. Ordinary Gambians have a serious political decision to make.
Are you going to stick with an unprepared president and prolong the needless pain and suffering of the people or are we prepared to keep trying for a much better president? President Barrow clearly is not the right person to be leading The Gambia.
And potential presidential candidates who talk about austerity economics because of the level of our national debt have no understanding of how national economies are built and developed. Or the stupid idea to sell off public assets.
And agreeing not to borrow above a certain nominal percentage figure of the economy from domestic sources (bond issuance). We got to talk about the economics of national development in our politics if we want to get the right president for the job.
Otherwise we’ll just be replacing one handicapped President with another unprepared and unsuitable square peg in a round hole. I didn’t watch that much of the president’s interview.
From the start, I figured out that what he was talking about has nothing to do with what he should be doing and talking about to develop the Gambian economy and improve the living standards of the people. The president’s interview was a PR stunt badly gone wrong.
Yusupha ‘Major’ Bojang
Brikama
Why are Muslims fighting for a brewery?
Dear editor,
To write that I am flabbergasted is an understatement. It grieves me to my very bone to note that in this holiest Muslim month of Ramadan, it is Muslims – who are presumably fasting and asking for forgiveness from Allah the Most High God – who are making all the noise about the 75 percent hike on tax of alcoholic beverages.
In the pages of newspapers, on radios and on Facebook and all social media, you hear nothing from these fasting Muslims but cries because a brewery that has been selling forbidden alcohol for forty years may be shut down because government had raised taxes on them.
Allah categorically forbade the making, selling and drinking of alcohol by Muslims. Alcohol is a terrible intoxicant that destroys lives and health. Therefore anyone who calls himself or herself a Muslim should not only keep away from making, selling and drinking alcohol but also condemn it. Therefore it is illogical and hypocritical for any Muslim to condemn the tax hike on Banjul Breweries. On the contrary, Muslims should applaud the Ministry of Finance for the tax hike and encourage the company to continue with the production of healthy halal drinks.
All those condemning the tax hike should repent to their Lord and seek forgiveness before His wrath befalls them
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Yirikuntu Bojang
Julbrew Road, Kanifing
