Dear Editor,
This is what you get when you depend on donor partners. We shall remain heavily indebted if the only major financial sources we have are taxes and foreign donations.
The solutions are:
1. Commercialising our agric approach. We should utilise our fertile land and grow more rice, which should be processed, packaged and marketed locally and distributed within the sub-region.
2. We should stop exporting raw groundnuts. The groundnut purchased from farmers in rural Gambia should be processed locally into cooking oil for local consumption and the excess exported. This way we can earn foreign currency that will lessen the pressure on the Dalasi.
3. We should send away the fishing trawler companies. The Ministry of Fisheries should be empowered to invest in fishing trawlers. The Atlantic Ocean and River Gambia are national resource that should benefit our citizens.
These trawlers will employ thousands of youths and the excess fish harvested can be exported abroad and to other landlocked countries within the sub-region. The Ministry of Fisheries should not be there only to issue out licences to foreign fishing vessels; it should be productive. The above are just a few recommendations for you, Honourable Finance Minister. GAMBIA SHOULD STOP GOING OUT TO BEG. WE HAVE THE RESOURCES LOCALLY TO BE SELF-SUFFICIENT!
Modou Salifu Sambou
Marakissa
IMF and The Gambia
Dear Editor,
I watched a short video of the IMF Country Representative in The Gambia shooting off about the institution’s economic outlook for the region and the national debt figures breakdown of The Gambia.
Listening to Mr Mendy, the IMF Gambia Country Representative, you’d think that the IMF is a benign financial and economic development policy advisory body to The Gambia. No, the IMF sets out the broadsheet economic policy paradigm for The Gambia Government.
Mr Mendy, what’s the national development logic behind the policy of privatising the Gambian economy? Should The Gambia be paying 27% of its GDP towards interest payments on its national debt? Mr Mendy said The Gambia owed only 8% of its external debt to the IMF. That The Gambia pays 27% of its GDP on interest payments on the national debt. Whatever GDP figures the IMF relies on about The Gambia are bogus figures. Why is The Gambia about to reach its debt ceiling when the national economy is growing and producing tangible economic products? The national debt, inflation and poverty are the only tangible economic growth products in The Gambia.
Poverty, more misery and corruption are the economic conditions in The Gambia. The IMF is a colonial financial and economic institution in the business of further keeping the African countries under the political, financial and economic control of the colonialists. The IMF is a colonial institution. The financial and economic policy advice of the IMF to The Gambia Government is only impoverishing The Gambia as an economic and political entity.
Why is The Gambia Government privatising the Gambian economy? When was the last time that the IMF renewed its confidence in The Gambia and committed to further working with the Barrow government? And the country may go bankrupt soon.
The Finance Minister thought that it’s someone else’s job to manage The Gambia’s public finances and the national economy. So, he’s warning us about the country reaching its debt ceiling. Why is it that every African country that wanted sustainable economic development would kick out the IMF, stop the privatisation of its national economy and natural resources, stop or significantly reduce borrowing from the IMF and other external debts?
What’s the IMF’s economic outlook on Mali, Burkina and Niger? Reportedly, Mali and Burkina have paid off their national debts and are poised to be the fastest growing economies in the sub-region. Mali, Burkina and Niger have stopped privatising their national economies and natural resources.
Paying 27% of GDP on servicing interest payments on their national debt? No reasonable government listens to the economic development policy advice directives from the IMF. But in The Gambia, the president has the awareness level of a toddler. The finance minister is a follow-along to get along pen-pushers like Mr Mendy. Mr Mendy is doing his job of making money for the IMF from The Gambia. The job of the Gambian president and finance minister is to prudently manage our national economy and public finances into a sustainable and affordable national economy. China is The Gambia’s natural economic development ally.
It’s The Gambia Government that will develop the Gambian economy by investing in the provision of public services. The Gambia needs a different national economic development policy paradigm. The privatisation of the Gambian economy is impoverishing the Gambian people and concentrating the common wealth into a few hands. Corruption is the business card of the government. There’re no accessible public services in The Gambia and yet, the IMF renewed its commitment to working with The Gambia Government. Working with The Gambia to achieve what, more borrowing, privatisation and a national economy submerged in debt?
Yusupha ‘Major’ Bojang
Scotland Â
