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Momodou
Denmark
11681 Posts |
 Posted - 13 Feb 2008 : 21:33:48
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Foroyaa Editorial
Another Failing Groundnut Trade Season
The secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs indicated to the members of the National Assembly that the farmers have produced 130, 000 tons of groundnuts. The problem of marketing groundnuts has been growing over the years. The greatest disaster came when Government tried to stop farmers from selling their crops across the border and in the local weekly markets under the pretext that a new company called GAMCO had the capital to purchase all the groundnut crop of the country. The government did not utilise funds from the AMRC, if they really exist, to get the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives to purchase the nuts; on the contrary, it got the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation to provide guarantees for GAMCO to get loans from the commercial banks to enable it to purchase groundnuts. The promise that adequate capital had been brought into the country by investors behind GAMCO became a farce.
The public corporations took great risk to guarantee a company which did not have a future. Hence the groundnut trade went back to square one.
Today the farmers are wondering why the trade season was not only late to start but the price offered is lower than what is offered in Senegal. Foroyaa will conduct interviews with the authorities to find out the reasons.
It should be borne in mind that what we export is what enables us to reduce our trade deficit. If we export less in the face of higher imports, this will lead to greater trade deficits.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issues
Issue No. 19/2008, 13 -14 February 2008
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