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Momodou
Denmark
11828 Posts |
 Posted - 11 May 2006 : 14:01:28
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Editorial
WHO IS MISLEADING THE PEOPLE?
(Part2) see part 1 below
In response to Foroyaa editorial of 4-7 May 2006, the Daily Observer published an article, which reported that SOS Touray described the editorial as “unfounded and misleading.” According to the Daily Observer, SOS Touray considers our reference to the mismanagement of the economy by the Executive as unfounded and misleading.
We maintained that our statement is well founded and cited cases of people found liable by the Paul Commission, including SOS Touray himself, for sums of money amounting to millions of dalasis. We also noted that the President has failed to publish the report for the public to have full knowledge or to give reasons why he had not done so as required by the constitution. See last issue for other references.
In his concluding remarks, SOS Touray was quoted as stating: “Let Foroyaa provide an alternative and stop making unrealistic statements. They should understand that the days of the GPMB and GCU are gone.” The alternative proposed by Foroyaa is simple and straightforward. Let’s examine the facts to know who is realistic.
Mismanagement aside, the wrong policies are being pursued. The revenue of the state is tax based and this is unsustainable. Each year the government incurs more debts in order to sustain its budget. In 2006 D1,500 million is to be taken out of a total budget of D3,800 million to pay debts. Out of D1500 million debt service for 2006, D955 million constitutes interest on the loan whilst D717 million constitutes interest on domestic debts. This is not sustainable.
In fact the Secretary of State for finance in his 2006 budget speech indicated that a budget deficit of D885 million was experienced in 2005 resulting to net external borrowing of D446 million and net domestic borrowing of D448 million.
At a workshop for Parliamentarians held this week the Permanent Secretary Department of State for Education indicated that the budget allocation for education has to be slashed by a “quarter of twenty percent” because of shortfalls in the anticipated revenue and expenses in the AU Summit, for which D118 million has been allocated.
Is this realistic? Is it prudent to use funds for an AU Summit when you are not in a position to purchase the produce of the farmers and cannot get the private sector to do so?
What Foroyaa is saying is that to continue to rely on taxation to build the revenue base is unsustainable. The billions of dalasis accumulated by the public sector should be invested in the productive base of the economy in order to build the economy and generate income to finance the budget.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 36/2006, 11-14 May, 2006
Editorial
WHO IS MISLEADING THE PEOPLE?
(Part1)
In an article published by the *Daily Observer* of May 5th 2006, the Secretary of State for Agriculture is reported to have described *FOROYAA*'s Editorial of 4-7 May 2006 "as unfounded and misleading, and then urged the paper to do a through investigation before putting pen on paper." The editorial was a reaction to Weekend News Update, a Radio Gambia programme conducted by Malick Jones at which SoS Touray was a guest.
Let us now proceed to find out what *FOROYAA* has written which can be described as "unfounded and misleading."
FOROYAA's editorial summed up what SoS Touray said in the programme as follows:
1) The proposal for the government to purchase nuts is welcome
2) But it cannot be implemented because government does not have the means to do so.
3) Government can only act as a facilitator in the groundnut trade
4) The private sector should lead the way in the purchase of nuts.
These statements were not denied in the *Daily Observer* article.
In the editorial, we made the following observations and deductions:
1) The state cannot purchase the nuts
2) The private sector has not provided adequate funds to purchase the nuts
3) As a result of the lack of finance to purchase the nuts credit buying still prevails in spite of repeated promises by the Executive that there would be no credit buying.
These observations and deductions were not contradicted by the *Daily Observer* article. What then does SoS Touray consider "unfounded and misleading?"
Well, in our conclusion, we wrote the following: "they continue to languish in poverty, misery and degradation as the Executive continue to mismanage the economy.
SoS Touray's statement is a clear testimony that the regime is not in a position to solve the problems of the masses"
SoS Touray considers our statement "as the Executive continues to mismanagement the economy" as unfounded and misleading. We shall prove beyond any doubt that this statement is well founded and accurate.
SoS Touray is quoted as asking "Does mismanagement mean taking monies from the SSHFC to pay farmers?" The answer is that this would become unnecessary if more than 100 people found liable by the Paul Commission pay what they were ordered to pay into public coffers. You, for example, were ordered to pay 2.9 million dalasis into Gambia Tourism Authority coffers. Have you done so? What about the D173 million of YDE funds spent on Millennium Air? What about customs duty to the state from YDE worth D73 million? What about the D417 million relating to Central Bank monies for which the state took several people to court only for the proceedings to be aborted without explanation? We can go on and on but this would suffice to show how mismanagement is affecting the economy.
Who knows what the unknown has in stock? Auditor General's report and Central Bank report are lagging behind. The president failed to comply with section 206 of the constitution, which requires him to either publish the report of the Paul Commission within 6 months or to issue a statement stating reasons why he has not done so.
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