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Momodou
Denmark
11644 Posts |
 Posted - 28 Mar 2007 : 18:14:28
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FOCUS ON POLITICS
AFTER FIVE YEARS OF REPUBLICAN EXISTENCE, HOW DID THE ECONOMY FARE?
With Suwaibou Touray
Continued from: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3393
In the last issue, we were analysing the Gambian economy from 1970 to 1975, the first five years of Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara's administration. We had stopped where we gave an example that the worker had no control over his or her pay, neither a say over the prices of commodities. This we opined makes it difficult for them to cater for their families. Let us continue from where we had stopped.
The worker has no control over his pay neither a say over prices of commodities which makes it difficult for him to cater for his family.
For example, a bag of sugar was increased in 1973 from D25 to D50 when the salary of the worker was not increased, but according to the 'Outlook newspaper' ministers' salaries were increased.
This was why in 1970, the workers unions had clamoured for a salary revision, because they felt that the colonialists had created an unusual disparity in terms of wages between the "Pen Pushers", white collar workers, and the skills persons and laborers. The Government also accepted and contracted a British national, Mr. Wallace, to come and review the capacity of The Gambian economy with a view to recommend at least two things;
1. To see if the economy could accommodate the upward adjustment of wages of both the white collar workers, as well as, the skills workers and laborers,
2. To review and recommend the reduction of the gap between the various categories of workers in the civil service;
The Wallace report did not only take time to come out but took even a longer time for Government to inform the people and workers of it's contents and whether or not it has accepted it. Mr. M.E Jallow, who is the Secretary General of The Gambia Workers' Union, had to meet president Jawara to avail on him to increase salaries of the minimum pay workers, as well as, propose new working hours for the workers.
The tension continued to mount and on the 28th July 1975, it was felt that M.E Jallow's meeting had not yielded dividend, motivating workers all over the country to go on a general strike to protest against what they called the delaying tactics being employed by the Government in revealing the new salary structure as recommended by Mr. Wallace. According to the Outlook, this was the first time in post Gambian independence history that workers from all shades, irrespective of ethnicity and partisan leanings were able to come together to struggle for a common cause. The strike took four days.
From 1970 onward, the Gambia was engaged in the exportation of groundnuts as well as cotton and also encouraging the tourism industry. The GPMB (Gambia Produce Marketing Board) was responsible for all the groundnut exports. It did this through the cooperative union which was supposed to be owned by the farmers themselves. The cooperative union would loan farming implements, fertilizers and seed-nuts to the farmers at a reasonable rate. Through this the farmer or peasant could increase his/her yield the following season.
The GPMB was so successful in its activities by exporting groundnuts and cotton and cotton seed and importing rice, sugar, edible oil and even fertilizers. Since it was the government that was engaged in much of the imports of essential commodities, it behoves on them to also establish a price control mechanism in 1973 which was applauded by the people.
As I stated earlier, Government initially had a lot of energy and foresight to diversify the economy. It has tried with the Government of Iceland to exploit the ilmenite deposits in the Gambia to eradicate what some called a "one legged economy". The objective was to utilize hydro-electric power plant to smelt the ilmenite. This has failed to materialise, but cotton proved to be viable in the initial phase, and it still is.
Secondly, the NTC (National Trading Company) popular at the time (1973) also organised and effect exports and imports and engaged in trade as a commercial organization.
So at this stage, even though the country faced problems, the Government appeared to have taken the right decisions.
This was why, by 1974, the cooperative union bought a total of 127,440 tonnes of groundnuts when the season was not even over at the time compared to 95,717 tonnes in 1972-73 seasons.
More prospects came by 1974, when Gambia and Libya signed Economic and Technical Cooperation whereby the two countries agreed to develop and strengthen technical cooperation between them in the field of Education, Agriculture, Trade and Industry. Libya offered $1million dollars towards the purchase of Radio Transmitters at a time when the people in the U.R.D dubbed radio Gambia as radio Kombo, construction of administrative buildings and health centres. Libya also provided £40,000 British pounds towards the completion of the Gambia Muslim Association Secondary School in Banjul and another $250,000 dollars to establish jointly Gambia Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Public Transport Corporation, GLPTC and later GPTC, as well as other areas such as in the field of culture, education, Technology, Agriculture, scientific research and sports.
The United States government also gave a grant of $75,000 or D1,093,500 dalasi on December 1974 to be administered by USAID in cooperation with the ministry of Agriculture.
By 1974, a sahelian drought that had afflicted our neighbours in West Africa such as Senegal, Mali, Niger, etc., was reported to have threatened the Gambia, as well.
On 28 May 1994, Sir Dawda told parliament that food crops such as sorghum, rice, guinea-corn and millet had dropped by about 58% during the period. He blamed it on external constraints, international inflation, instability of exchange rates and what he called erratic shipping movement. Hunger was said to have intensified in the Gambia which prompted the Soviet Union to officially donate 500 tonnes of rice to the country as a contribution to the drought menace. A soviet ship brought the rice, according to the 'Outlook'.
Tourism was slowly booming, because by 1973, over 19,000 tourists made Gambia their holiday resort, prompting the construction of many hotels.
The Gambia commercial and Development Bank, the only one of its kind at the time, was dominating banking business in the country by making loans available to small and large scale business persons. As you can see, loans, grants and Groundnuts and cotton exports and the fact that the dalasi was still linked to the British pound, all make the Government and people optimistic. This was the period when, according to The Nation newspaper, Gambians were very proud and used to boast that 'because we are a god-fearing people, we were able to have the peace that we had and therefore other countries should emulate us.
Continued: http://www.gambia.dk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3429
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 36/2007, 28-29 March, 2007
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