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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Videos: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Momodou[/i] [br][b][size=4]Exposing the Economic Resources Looting Interest Groups in the Gambia![/size=4] By Suleyman Ben Suwareh The Battle of the Titans![/b] President Barrow is caught between a rock and a hard place! A few weeks before the presidential, elections two of his associated Economic cartels associated competing in taking over the country’s economy brought their dirty laundry (the Fuel Crises) in public destabilising the economy and risking both national security and jeopardising the president’s re-election campaign. Background. The country like many other has elites from the public, private and civil society that exert influence for only selfish gains with no national benefit and consideration in their motivation. They are reference here as interest groups, cartels, or the Mafia. They operate by ensuring control of political power through patronage of political parties and philanthropists associated with them or family members. They generally build this relationship based on linguistic, religious, family, or regional ties; they also build alliances across other groups to fight a perceived common enemy. These interest groups have evolved in accordance with the political dispensations of the day, beginning from the First Republic through the dictators, to date. Their transcontinental connections with corrupt foreign business interest give them added standing and influence to take over critical sectors of the state and economy. Their mode of operations has not changed. They continue to use their political leverage to control the economic resources of the country by controlling the corrupted executives with power to make decisions in their favour. [b]The Background of those involve in Current the Feud.[/b] It involve two separate interest groups that worked as allies in the past to push out other interest groups in the hope of monopolising the entire economy, some of the other interest groups are still in the fight for the attention of the president other have strategically move on to join the oppositions in the hope of building a leverage in case an opposition party they support wins the elections, others are hedging their bets by supporting both the president and the oppositions. We shall concentrate on the current feud for simplicity reasons. Next write-up will elaborate on the entire networks of interest groups. With the change of government in 2016 a new interest group emerged during the political impasse, while the average citizen was worried about their survival and the situation of the country, the interest group saw an opportunity to position themselves for looting our economic resources. First action they took was to go to Dakar and join the president elect during his temporal exile. Hence, to start lobbing and building political capital for future power to leverage. Due to the lack of political sophistication, inexperience advisers and lack of cultural- diversity inclusivity groups had no problem accessing him to lobby and position themselves for the loot of our economic resources. Evidently, the first causality were his political allies in the political alliance (the coalition), then follow by his parent party that sponsored his candidature (the UDP) which was followed by businessmen, technocrat that didn’t support his political ambitious or those pushed out by the competition. In the end, the so-called winners got the deck of cards rearrange to back his political future which is the same as perpetuating the looting of Gambia’s economic resources by a few for selfish, unpatriotic motivations. Two Competing Interest Groups Associated with the President: [b]The First Group in the Fuel Crises.[/b] From the start, the most influential interest group became those that has shared cultural ties (I am deliberately using less-sensitive words to avoid negative sentiments in the time of elections) with the president, he was more comfortable with this group due to only sharing cultural background, but he was less threaten due to their lack of intellectual rigor and their believe in mystique’s. This group form an intercontinental ally with other interest group in the sub region and they operate their businesses across different borders and some of their business’s associates are linked to organise crime operating globally linked to conflict mineral and the narcotic trade. The group are new in the Gambia, they have ties with Islamist organisations, their operates mainly in conflict countries, they have great influence with regional leaders (influence by trade and practice of mystique’s) and outside the continent they have connects in China, Spain, America, especially France and lately Turkey. They use their financial and political capital to control the executive, which enable them to build networks of infrastructure across some key sectors in our newly found democratic dispensation (media and legal, business fraternity etc.) and asserting their narrative influence in aspects of works of lives and livelihood. [b]Evidence of their relationship with the executive: The Clandestine trip to Congo![/b] Few weeks after President Barrow returning to the Gambia from his exile in Senegal, he was taken on an unannounced trip to Congo Brazzaville in the company of only member of the new interest group, no cabinet minister was in the entourage (not even the foreign affairs) only a skeleton staff from the president close protection and the protocol officer accompanied him from the government the private jet was fully occupied by mainly businessmen. The trip was reported be a clandestine money laundering operation by interest group and their associates. Just after that trip a member of the interest group was reported to be interested in buying the Mega Bank from the Central of the Gambia, the public outcry and pressure from other quarters must have prevented the sale of the Bank to him. They did end up establishing businesses and taken over major government contracts and mineral mining and now they are controlling the energy sector especially the supply of fuel. [b]The Second Interest Group in the Fuel Crises.[/b] The second interest ground mainly comprises of middle age Gambian’s business men , the like- minded economic resources looter remnants that emerged and survived from dealings during dictatorship. Similar to the other interest groups they are bonded by their shared family cultural and regional background. They are one of the educated supposedly sophisticated interest group that operates in the areas of Banking and finance, telecoms, the transport service industry, oil and fuel lubricant and the media industry. At the beginning of the transitional government of president Barrow, this particular interest group explored forming a political party to take over the state directly via the ballot box by forming a political explorations committee, but the leaders of the groups abandon their project when they manage to penetrate the government and had influence over the executive. [b]Evidence of their relationship with the executive.[/b] They used their education, experience, and intellectual skills to penetrate the executive by exploiting their incompetency, corrupt-mindedness, and overall weakness in the skills of governance and administrations. President Barrow’s administration has continued the practice of working with interest groups to financially defraud the system by giving undue access to unscrupulous looters disguised as business to their advantage in winning government procurement contracts, by paying kickbacks to him via the agencies facilitating the corruption. Part of the looting process is the placement of their families, friends, and business associates in strategic government positions from the office of the president to the ministers, permanent secretaries, goodwill ambassadors, managing directors, chairman to boards running state own enterprises (SOEs) and on. These also include appointments of their members to head the utility, financial and other regularity, or oversight agencies. In a nutshell, cryptocracy is raging with sever consequences to the national, economic, and political security of The Gambia. [b]The Cancel Dubai Trip, served as evidence of both Interest group associating with the executive![/b] The planned trip to Dubai was organised to benefit the two-interest group helping them accessing business deal facilitated by the state, to creatin a monopoly that the president get his regular kickback and continues support for his political ambition. The large entourage was comprised of members from the two interest groups. The president planned and Cancel trip to Dubai with his business delegates (interest group) presented a classic example of how his administration operate and exposes some of the people who are operating the Economic cartel. Below is a summary of the press report. On 1st April 2021, The Statehouse announced the President traveling to Dubai on Saturday, 3rd April 2021, on a five–day working visit by invitation of the Private Office of His Highness, Sheikh Marwan Bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The press statement further state that the President and his delegation will amongst other issues explore possible partnerships to promote and strengthen Public–Private Partnership to enhance socio–economic development. To the surprise of the public on 03rd of April when the president was supposed to travelled, the President Press Secretary released a statement that President’s trip to Dubai has been postponed, they given no reason. Her press secretary Amie Bojang Sissoko refuses to respond to a request for comment from the press. What they failed to declare was the trip was organised by people with a questionable background, who were using Dubai as a destination due to the country less stringent business regulation and they have line-up deals that were not transparent which is not to the state’s interest. The trip was organised with the likes of Frank Timis, who was expecting to an official signing of the settlement agreement and awarding of Block A4 petroleum licence to Petronor E&P by the government of the Gambia. Some other individuals were working on official signing a management contract deal to take over the management of the Banjul Sea Port and other unknow deals. Some of the members of the president entourage were re-known unscrupulous individuals suspected on planning to carryout smuggling operation of conflict minerals to avoid tax and some illegal substances. The agitation of the trip, exposing the irregularity the lack of transparency by Gambian Activist contributed to the cancellation of the trip abruptly. Part two of the write-up will expose in detail the reason for the recent fuel crises. [hr] Related Topic: https://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=17935 [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.