By Madi Jobarteh
Internet – expensive.
Water – expensive.
Electricity – expensive.
Fuel – expensive.
Cost of living – expensive.
Quality of service – poor.
This is the daily reality for ordinary Gambians. The government must be reminded that after roads are paved, schools built, and hospitals opened, people still need to afford life itself. Citizens must be able to buy bread and butter, pay fares, and travel without frustration or exhaustion. It makes no sense that people spend hours on the road from Brikama or Westfield to reach Banjul because of limited and costly transportation.
Buildings, roads, and projects do not, by themselves, create prosperity. They are means to human development, not ends in themselves. True development begins when these infrastructures translate into quality, affordable, and accessible goods and services; when a student can study with electricity, when a mother can afford clean water, when a worker can pay fare without losing half their income.
More than sixty years since independence, billions of dalasi have been spent by successive governments. Yet, national indicators still show widespread poverty, rising costs, limited opportunities, and erratic yet expensive services. Every project, every service, every government intervention is financed by taxpayers, loans, and grants. But if citizens continue to pay high taxes while the country sinks deeper into debt, what is the value of that so-called development when people cannot afford education, healthcare, or transport?
The equation is simple and dangerous: high taxes and loans on one hand and increasing poverty and cost of living on the other. This imbalance is unsustainable and could cripple the nation if ignored.
Countries such as Madagascar, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Lebanon did not fail because they were inherently weaker or poorer than The Gambia. They fell into crisis because they followed the same path of high taxes, endless loans, rampant corruption, and unchecked inequality, all while citizens were asked to tighten their belts as leaders lived large.
Just look around The Gambia today: luxury vehicles, designer suits, extravagant ceremonies, cozy air conditioned offices and halls, and the latest gadgets – all flaunted by public officials as though The Gambia were an Emirati oil state. Yet ordinary people cannot afford transport fare, electricity bills, or a bag of rice.
The tragedy is not only economic but moral. There is too much corruption, too much flamboyance, too much inefficiency, and lack of care in public institutions. And worse, these are often rewarded, not punished. When leaders display wealth while the population suffers, they insult the very idea of public service. Leadership must be about sacrifice and responsibility, not privilege and indulgence.
President Adama Barrow, his ministers, and advisors must stop and reflect deeply. The path they are on is not new. Others have walked it before, and it leads not to prosperity and peace, but to poverty, conflict, and collapse. Development is not about how many projects are launched, but about how much dignity, opportunity, and affordability people enjoy. A word to the wise is enough.
For The Gambia, Our Homeland.
