Column | Barrow’s “Special Economic Zone”
By Saul Saidykhan
On Wednesday, January 8, 2025, Barrow’s Minister of Trade and Industry and the Regional Commissioner “Governor” for LRD, summoned a group of village Alkalos, and District Chiefs to a meeting that was held at the Commissioner’s office in Mansakonko.
According to two of the attendees, the government delegation told them of the imminent launch of a AfDB/World Bank funded Special Economic Zone along the Trans-Gambia corridor.
This I assume is part of the ongoing Trans-continental highway construction in various regions of our homeland.
The group was shown a colorful video presentation of the industrial park that would be established in this planned zone. The area ear-marked for the project is a 25 square kilometer space that starts at Poste Kerr Aiyib on our northern border with Senegal near Farafenni, extending to the island of Balengo to the west; Bambali to the east; then across the river Gambia to Kabada-Missira on our southern border with Senegal.
The group was told that “a minimum of 50 companies” will set up operations in this zone and that they could/would employ up to 100,000 people!
At first glance, this sounds wonderful. Until one remembers the record of this government on its promises. My interest in this project is both pan-African and personal.
That is because part of the land being targeted has literally been in our family for two centuries.
So, while we would support any project that is geared towards realizing the aims of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) initiative, we would not sit by and allow conmen – in government or private industry, to dupe our people like they did to most of Kombo.
For context, in the past thirty years or so, communal lands in western Kombo have been taken over by government and given to a select group of crooked cronies in an egregious and brazen abuse of the concept of “Eminent Domain.” In a country where the average public employee does not make D70,000 ($1,000 USD) a YEAR, some of those cronies build and sell “affordable houses” costing D3 Million ($42.8K USD.) In a nutshell, a public employee who is lucky to be earning D70,000 a year must work for 43 YEARS and save ALL his/her income to be able to buy a four-bedroom house! Yet, some want us to celebrate these “affordable houses” in the name of “development” neverminded most members of the host communities could never afford the properties built on their ancestral lands.
For this reason, we, the Jarra West or Jaduma communities whose lands are targeted by this plan have agreed to seek legal counsel to preempt any shady dealings and to protect our interests. And if we have to take the matter to an international court, we will.
For starters, we have several questions regarding the government’s presentation that need clarification:
No company in Gambia today has 500 permanent employees.
Yet, the government is telling our folks that a minimum of 50 companies will establish facilities in this area that could employ 100K people. That’s 2,000 employees per company. (GPMB at its peak never had such a payload.
Even 100 companies must hire 1,000 people each to meet the rosy picture being bandied around.)
Since this will be private sector driven, what companies have shown interest in establishing facilities in this corridor to justify the potential employment numbers being floated?
Since Gambia lacks the mineral resources to support large scale manufacturing or mining, what industries can this location support besides basic mercantile/retail outlets?
Given the sorry state of Gambian agriculture and horticulture, what agro-allied companies are being courted to directly help this majority farming area population?
Since fishing is the only industry that has the potential to employ large numbers of people – if the government cares enough about creating employment to cancel the unpatriotic Chinese and EU Fishing Agreements, why can’t this zone be confined to the flood plains on the two sides of the river in the designated area?
How much of this targeted area is in fact meant to be turned over to private individuals or entities in a pay-for-play arrangement like the coastal Tourist Development Area TDA was or merely to build new settlements for transplants from the sub-region to actualize the subtle demographic engineering that the current administration is engaged in?
For a government that serially cheats and or misleads its citizens on almost every issue, it would be foolish not to take its pronouncements with a CUP of salt! This is especially relevant given how farmers are currently being scammed in trying to sell their last rainy season agricultural products by government designated buyers without any real recourse.
Ngosi Sikelele Afrika!