Opinion – Mr. Jawara, I’ve been reading some of your articles on the state of our nation, and thank you for recalling events some of us might have by now forgotten. But sometimes your critiques of conditions in The Gambia, either conveniently or by a lapse of memory ignore the context, without which the reader may go away with an incomplete picture. While there’s no space or time to recall all such moments, let me refer to a few in your article titled, ”An Economic Guide with Statistics for the Gambian Voter — December – Halifa, Sidia, Grand Coalition”.
But first, let me make it clear that I am not a PDOIS party member, but I have always held Halifa and Sidia in high esteem because I worked with both before their political careers began: Halifa as a staff member of the Social Welfare Department and Sidia as a curriculum development expert. I voted for the PPP until 1992, when I cast a protest vote for the NCP.
I worked under Sir Dawda for 20 years and 13 years under Jammeh, but I never worked for Barrow. Having seen all three administrations at work sometimes with minimal access to sensitive info as a journalist, I have no reason to be biased in my judgment of what I experienced. So, Mr. Jawara, I am disappointed by your rosy, biased, and unfair representation of the events and developments under the Sir Dawda, Yahya, and Barrow administrations.
Your quote: “From 1964 to 1978, real growth averaged 7%, our highest per capita growth ever recorded.”
While this is true, you are comparing two distinctly different Gambias. You are contrasting the immediate post-independence era which had a far smaller population of about 500,000 people, less infrastructure, fewer schools, and limited health facilities with no more than 30 doctors to the Gambia of today. Back then, there were mostly bush tracks across the country, and the availability of electricity would have sounded like science fiction to almost 99% of Gambians.
The only known factories in operation were the groundnut decorticating mills at Denton Bridge, Kuntaur, and Kaur, the cotton ginnery at Basse, and the Sapu rice project. Consequently, population migration was largely directed westward to Kuntaur Dandimayo, Kaur, Basse, or Sapu, while a few headed east toward Sarro or to Banjul for menial jobs.
So, how can any fair-minded person compare those periods with 1994–2017, when our population exploded into the million-plus region, and the repressive Jammeh administration managed to build roads and schools, start a university, establish new health facilities, and station more local and foreign doctors across the country? It is even more perplexing to compare and contrast the exchange rates of the Dalasi: D9.30 back then compared to today’s rate of D74.29.
What has happened to our population, road infrastructure, education, communications, and health infrastructure from 2017 to date under President Barrow, Mr. Jawara? How can we account for all the developments that have taken place without attributing them to the huge loans that you quoted across three presidencies? No impartial mind can deny that there was and there still is corruption, nepotism, incompetence, and missed opportunities in all three administrations; because no human administration will ever be perfect, and that is why context presents a more accurate and balanced story.
Besides, name just three countries apart from Brunei Darussalam and probably Monaco, that one can claim have no debt obligations. The USA, where you lived and studied, has a higher national debt than all of Africa and Europe combined, standing at a staggering multi-trillion-dollar figure, yet she is still considered the “richest and most powerful nation on earth.” What then does she need such huge debts for? So, what is all this brouhaha about small Gambia’s debt?
While asking the above questions is important, my main focus is on your overly rosy picture of the First Republic, including your claims of it having “the best civil service in Africa” and presenting a near-flawless Gambia. I know for a fact that our civil service was regarded as one of the best, but not the best in Africa. I also know that it was during the late Hon.
Sheriff Ceesay’s tenure at Finance that our economic records were impressive enough to end what used to be called the “British Grant-in-Aid”, a form of direct budget support. Furthermore, South Africa’s Finance Minister Botha and Kwesi Botchwey of Ghana were often considered Africa’s top two finance ministers, while the Gambia under Sheriff Ceesay usually captured third position. When it came to telecommunications, South Africa still held the number one spot, while Gambia under B. K. Njie always tussled with Botswana for Africa’s second place.
You quote: “Government revenue averaged 21% of GDP, investment 32% of GDP. We were one of the few African countries to graduate from IMF balance of payment support.”
So, my question to you is: what changed that rosy IMF/World Bank-related picture in the mid-1980s, when The Gambia became the economic basket case that she was?
The so-called Bretton Woods institutions stepped in with their deliberately and carefully crafted panaceas, being policy instruments that they dangled alongside excruciating loan conditionalities before the shiny eyes of a Third World economy that was bleeding profusely and desperately needing an economic lifeline. Such Third World economic malaise always stemmed from largely unfair global trading terms that created severe trade imbalances.
We must remember that the West maintains a stranglehold on all key trade, monetary instruments, and logistics institutions, enforcing vastly different lending terms and rates for so-called First, Second, and Third World countries.
The Gambia’s monocultural cash-crop economy, which was heavily reliant on peanuts, was experiencing debilitating hiccups. Then the manipulative IMF and World Bank stepped in and recommended that The Gambia Produce Marketing Board (GPMB) which used to buy and market Gambian agricultural produce be sold.
Despite having bank savings of D700 million in 1978, the GPMB was sold to the Alimenta Groundnut Corporation of Switzerland for a paltry D20 million under the IMF/World Bank Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) and Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).
What kind of economic sense does it make to exchange a hen that has laid you golden eggs for one that has not even started laying ordinary eggs?
This divestiture programme was not only unfair but an act of total madness and daylight robbery. It gave Alimenta a monopoly over groundnut exports, destabilizing the agricultural sector, and later attempts to rectify the resulting collapse cost the government over $11 million. Privatization naturally favors multinational corporations, as it transfers economic control to foreign entities. The victim country is typically given a tight deadline for the sale, which forces the undervalued disposal of assets just as occurred in the Alimenta/GPMB case thereby undermining local ownership.
The Bretton Woods institutions rubbed salt into fresh Gambian wounds in 1985 when, as part of the ERP/SAP, they rolled out a civil service retrenchment programme. This resulted in the government showing the exit door to about 3,324 out of its staff complement of 14,224 (roughly 28% of the workforce). Furthermore, 700 vacancies were suppressed. These two blatant acts of open-day economic sabotage exacerbated unemployment and deprivation in a society where a single worker carries the survival burdens of eight to ten people or more, depending on the size of the extended family.
Shortly before this, in 1984, the government was advised to devalue the Dalasi by 25% under the guise of boosting exports. Instead, it triggered hyperinflation, capital flight, and a severe temporary scarcity of goods, as the fear of further devaluation caused businesses to withhold imports, worsening supply shortages.
Consequently, health service fees surged by 500% (from D1.00 to D5.00) in the mid-1980s.
Education costs rose due to increased tuition fees and shifting parental responsibility for school furniture. Parents were compelled to build desks and chairs for their children, with some students not only carrying their own furniture to school but learning under trees and grass-roofed sheds.
Subsidies for essentials like fertilizers and medicine were eliminated, disproportionately affecting the poor, while wealthy Western corporations like Alimenta were permitted to milk local enterprises for profit. The resulting drop in social spending and rising poverty naturally eroded public trust in governance, triggering public unrest like the famous Brikama water crisis and creating a social time bomb that finally exploded in 1994.
I expect a fair minded critique to include such vital/factual info for balaned reporting.
You also claim that the Team Gambia Grand Coalition’s leadership (Halifa/Sidia) fought Jawara at the time not on policy, but squarely out of personal vendetta, fueled by calculated hate, vilification, and cruelty, weaponized through ethnicity and tribe; that they could not beat his numbers, so they tried to burn his name.
This is a highly unguarded claim with absolutely no evidence to support such serious accusations.
