By Basil Jones, PhD
Gambia is at the dawn of a new era. We need to do the smart thing and nothing, absolutely nothing should stop or distract the in-coming government of President Adama Barrow from delivering to the Gambian people. To you, your Excellency Mr. President, Gambians at home and in the diaspora and all friends of Gambia wish you well. Mr. President, expectations are high from the Gambians for your administration. I will hasten to add that as Gambians will have to temper our high optimism with a dose of realism and give your administration time to get things right. So far we all appreciate what we have been hearing from the coalition spokesperson in terms of good governance by widening the democratic space, instituting rule of law and ensuring freedom of the press and expression responsibly.
Mr. President let me specifically talk about the macro-economy which have a lot of binding constraints caused by 22 years of misrule and economic mismanagement. Gambia should now be open for business – BUSINESS UNUSUAL. For your administration the needs are urgent – everything is a priority to achieve development impact. This calls for strategic and focused engagement with all Gambians, in particular the private sector and development partners (who have shown a lot of goodwill to re-engage with The Gambia). Our economy is not productive and have even regressed, hampered by inadequate infrastructure, weak institutions, an over taxed and over exploited private sector and lack of respect for property rights. The high poverty level have undermined efforts to accelerate economic progress and create employment for the youths leaving them with no alternative but to take the “backway”. This narrative have to change.
For the economy the starting point is to reestablish macroeconomic stability and an enabling business environment and more efficient use of public resources in an accountable and transparent manner. This will make or break economic management in the 3rd Republic. If you take the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business 2017 report that measures regulation that enhance business activity and those that constraint it. The Gambia is ranked 145 out of 190 countries. Then compare The Gambia to Rwanda that experienced Genocide, which is ranked 56. Mr. President Sir, this is the benchmark for the new administration. If Rwanda can do it – Gambia can also do it. We need to raise the bar very high and there is no room for mediocrity and complacency.
What is clear is that we need improved institutional and policy environment to attract private investment and mobilize resources both domestic and external. The domestic debt burden is out of control as Yahya have raped our economy using domestic financing. There is a need to revamp the entire public financial management system. There are also structural challenges that needs to be addressed such as youth unemployment, accelerating urbanization, environmental degradation that is exacerbated by climate change.
Prudent economic management is not rocket science, we need to get the fundamentals right again. So the incoming government will need broad and coherent policy objectives and actions on several fronts in order to jump start the economy, create the momentum and achieve sustainable and inclusive growth that will translate into improving the quality of life for our people.
My two cents contribution
