By Lt. Col. Samsudeen Sarr

I’ll start by wishing everybody reading this paper a happy “Koriteh” celebration with prayers of a healthy and wealthy year ahead for all Gambians. I further pray that we all enjoy the blessing of long life through many “Ramadans” in the future.

I was going to skip writing anything this week in celebration of the festive “Koriteh”, but with the latest developments, I found it imperative to come up with an assessment statement. First, it appears that nothing significant happened on October 8, the Monday President Jammeh had warned the business community to brace up for a drastic punitive action unless his economic desires were fulfilled. It was one of those “open calls” that nobody could speculate the motive behind the indignation. Even the best of speculators remained mute and watchful over how he was going to pump the value of the Dalasi to the rate of five to the dollar as he had vowed to do if his financial desires were not promptly met. However the conditions necessitating the rough talk on Gambia TV, i.e. the frightening economic problems associated with the scarcity of foreign currencies in the banks has not changed. I mean the “open call” never had any effects at all and a solution has yet to be seen. To think that there is nobody in the Jammeh Cabinet to tell him that a President making such frightening statements to those who keep the national market alive causes greater harm to the economy than anything else should be a cause for serious concern. Mr. Bala Gaye the Finance Minister must know that; but like most of his timid workers and followers, it might be very well possible that the man out of fear of losing his position couldn’t educate him on the dynamics of modern economics; or perhaps Gaye as the head of the Finance Department was not even informed of the spooky statement His Excellency had prepared that evening.

In the first place, I am still in agreement with those who disagree with Jammeh that his economic strategy has been responsible for the devaluation of the dollar against the dalasi. Many Gambians however believe that President Jammeh actually has something to do with it because he has been claiming so and thinking that it was a merit he could use for his PR. Yet we all known that there have recently been a serious slumping of the dollar and, I believe the pound sterling, in the world currency charts. I have lately been watching the world market financial index illustrating a tumbling dollar at a rate that many had thought was going to cause a recession in the USA. Until Alan Greenspan and other financial analysts came last week explaining the possibility of a bounce back of the dollar soon, most American financiers thought the pattern was irreversible.

Jammeh may not have the capability to follow such economic benchmarks but I am sure Bala Gaye and a few more learned Gambians within the government would know the facts.

Anyhow, I believe the effects of the global fall of the dollar that impacted the business community in The Gambia like all other countries in the world could have been explained in simple terms different from threats and insults with no logical meaning attached.

It’s like this; many businessmen must have bought or saved some hard foreign currencies or dollars before its rapid and unexpected decline and therefore, do not want to sell on losses hoping that it might bounce back to at least the rate that could earn them back their buying cash. Hence any more devaluation of the dollar will merely encourage extended hoarding time and D5.00 to the dollar could even mean no more dollars for sale in Gambian banks.

So for the Gambian economy to recover from what I will call this temporary setback, instead of threats I would have expected the alternative paradigm of devaluing the dalasi to a rate reasonable enough to stimulate selling from the hoarders without hurting the market.

If that is not feasible, then the situation will then have to be endured with all its difficulties until the global market recovers and the dollar goes back to its original strength. But “open calling” with no end of six-feet-deep holes dug for targeted culprits will not solve the problem. This is not black magic but realistic science. But economics is not my area so I hope better knowledgeable critics in the field could help us with the specifics

I will anyway go back to the Bala Jahumpa issue that was discussed last week in the wake of the stolen passports. Bala I understand didn’t do anything wrong but was reportedly incriminated on a false testimony. Willy Joof’s name was prominent among the fabricators although he seemed to have fallen quicker in the same ditch he had excavated for Bala and others. Fabricators like that in the Jammeh government are more deadly than angry cobras. But from what I learnt since I wrote about Bala Jahumpa and the others last week, the former Foreign Minister was not only a genuine loyalist to Jammeh but had always performed his duties with pure candor and commitment for national success. According to someone who has been monitoring his activities, Bala was called action man because of a risk he once took out of frustration to defuse a traffic jam at Westfield Clinic area where the traffic police officers didn’t know what to do about a desperate situation. In all fairness, I believe Bala was among the few last genuine ones offering Jammeh his best services but are one by one gutted out on impulsive actions taken by the President without verifying the facts behind the report presented on them. The NIA has caused a lot of havoc along those lines misleading Jammeh into taking regrettable actions. In most cases, the victims simply end up in his recycling bin. They may be reappointed but nearly all of them come back losing their trust or confidence in the system. Jammeh may not know it, but the worse workers in his government are those he has humiliated and recycled back into the system.

I believe those persecuted on false allegations are better off leaving the country or finding something else different from the job-handout on Jammeh’s time and convenience.

When I was removed as Army Commander in 1999 on a false premise, I immediately realized that my core values were violated and that waiting to be recycled was unacceptable. By all honesty it was humiliating and the biggest disappointment I had ever felt in the system. But after leaving the country for eight years now, I look back and thank God and everybody who helped to make it happen, including Jammeh of course. In leaving The Gambia to the USA, I was able to understand that I could do things that I never had imagined I could at home; the family I worked for, my family, was provided with a better opportunity in life without fear of any more disruption to its stability from a government wired to the hands of one individual. In general, I believe my wrong removal from the Army Commander’s position was nothing but a blessing from God.

However, the frequent impulsive actions taken by Jammeh on false pretext and reports which I think might have happened last week in the case of Bala Jahumpa are the main reasons why people working for him should be mindful of his erratic behavior.

Jahumpa may have been lucky to suffer mere humiliations within a short period; I could have been fortunate for being merely retired but how about those who might have suffered irreversible punishments on wrong circumstances that could have even cost them their lives?

I therefore thought it would have been unforgivable if I had waited to be recycled just to be hit again with a terminal blow.

Bala Jahumpa over the past thirteen years has been bouncing from one appointment to the other, but in this last one, the warning signs are glaring. With all his action-man merits, he doesn’t after all mean much to Jammeh when his emotions are in control of his senses. The next time he bounces back, he might as well be prepared for the worse at any given moment. Not everybody could leave the country and start a better life outside The Gambia, but far better international jobs are also available for those who want to try them. I have seen a lot of innocent Jammeh victims, sincere hard working loyalists who successfully exploited those opportunities with results greater than what The Gambia government could have afforded them in three uninterrupted decades of their best jobs. The world is huge and the opportunities limitless.

            I wish to conclude by informing everybody that President Jammeh’s brother, a man called Ansumana Jammeh will be marrying the daughter of my wife’s brother in Kaur this month. The date for the wedding is said to be next Thursday October 18 but information reaching me indicate that the marriage was already consummated last Thursday. President Jammeh is now my in law.

However details of how the two met and fell in love is not yet clear to me.