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The smallest country – both in terms of size and population - in continental Africa with barely 2 million people, settled in approximately 4,300 sq. miles, making it one of the most densely populated country on the continent. 700,000 or 35% of the country’s population is cramped in the Western Region of which 70% are resident in its westernmost part where almost all of the (urban) development of the last two decades took place unabated, unregulated and barely challenged until now.
The developments that took place within the Bijilo corridor
in the last couple of decades, facilitated, in part, by the Kombo Coastal Road making
many backwater villages accessible, transformed an erstwhile collection of
farming communities into a near urban jungle, albeit with enclosed, gated
communities to insulate the prospective occupants with the realities of
miseries of poverty that surrenders them.
The urban development model in use in The Gambia induces
poverty because it deprives the initial owners the use of communal land that
previously earned them a subsistence level of living without providing
alternative employment opportunities.
Instead, they are usually the object of scorn and the threat of
unleashing the paramilitary police (PIU) on an aggrieved defenseless community
– a favorite tactic employed by land speculators with the tacit approval of
authorities.
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These Jammeh-era methods of acquisition of state land
generally ignored the established law, especially when it involved the former
dictator. Large tracts of communal land
belonging to villages were forcibly annexed, fenced and ownership transferred
to his name. Even though private
speculators did not quite employ the same method of annexation, they did
exploit the prevailing atmosphere of what was then equivalent to a state of
emergency by ignoring all the rules and regulations governing the acquisition
of state land. As regards communal land,
the approval of the village Alkalo and village elders using all sorts of
unsavory means to guarantee smooth transfer to speculators.
The removal of communal land from agricultural or
horticultural production and into residential or commercial purposes has the
potential of increasing the incidence of rural poverty, especially if the
reclassification is not creating replacement jobs for the economy in general
and the affected communities in particular.
In peri-urban areas like Sukuta, Brufut, Kololi and Manjai,
local residents have suffered because of the same land speculators’ insatiable
thirst for more agricultural land that is inevitably converted into high end
residential condos and gated communities, depriving the rest of the of their
open spaces, football fields, markets, places of worship and other community
amenities.
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Land that residents, especially the youth, of Kololi, Kololi
and satellite communities, fought so hard to protect from expropriation has
been parceled out in 15 x 20m and 18 x 20m lots and priced at D864,000 and D
1,036,800 respectively for those who can afford a 30% down payment and to
retire the rest in twelve monthly installments.
This is happening in a country where the majority of its two million
inhabitants still live a subsistence life and where 70% of them are engaged in
and/or are employed in the agriculture sector.
Chinese fish meal factories in Gunjur and Sanyang are posing an environmental hazard to these communities and beyond with sludge being disposed of in abandoned sand quarry that can easily sip into the water table threatening the health and welfare of communities beyond Sanyang.
Indiscriminate use of our limited and environmentally
sensitive land has been taken to new and irresponsible heights. After Monkey Park and surrounding reserve
parks were recently saved from land speculators, following protests by
environmentalists, we have learned from irate residents near the Badala Parkway
Reserve that this environmentally delicate area has targeted for
development.
In fact, this reserve land
was designated in 1970 by the Bafuluto Tourism Study and incorporated this
environmentally sensitive area into the Kotu, Kololi and Kerr Serign settlements
as part of the Tourism Development complex that led to the construction of the road
network from Kotu Police Station to SOS, across to Palma Rima Hotel junction
via Kololi.
The reserve was meant to be a leisure and recreation promenade
for the general public and visiting tourists.
Unfortunately, the long-term plan of the area is being threatened by a
group of land speculators who are determine to consume every available land in the
Kombos, more for speculative purposes than a rational and developmentally sound
investment for the area.
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According to sources, including concerned area residents,
the entire reserve, including Cape Point, has been deserved by Ministry of
Lands and Physical Planning Department and sold to Mohammed Jah of Q-Cell,
Atlas Petroleum through Edi Jobe, Saul Frazer of Global Properties, Blue Ocean
Properties of Abubacar Bensouda and several others.
Residents of these areas were never consulted and front
property owners whose residences will be blocked from view have been
particularly aggrieved as a result this action by the Local Government Ministry. Besides the environmental destruction the new
plan will cause should Gambians allow this irresponsible decision to go
unchallenged, the quality of life of residents of the area will be severely
affected.
Constructions have already started in some areas of the
Badala Stretch with walls and fences going up at breakneck speed. The main road from the Kotu West Mosque that
leads to the Kotu Community Center to the Badala Road will be closed, making
access to community facilities near impossible.
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Communities all over Kombo South have been impacted and
their livelihood threatened by land speculators and simple grabbers of both State
and community land. We have written extensively
about how Global Properties and Swami India, in cahoots with the former KMC
Mayor, expropriated a formerly state land in the Kololi/ Manjai Kunda that is
now for sale for anywhere from over half a million dalasi to over one million
dalasi, a price range well beyond the means of an average Gambian. You can find the relevant blog posts here,
here and also here.
The Manjago village of Taneneh is the latest in a number of
communities standing up for their inherent rights to access to land and social
amenities, including a decent burial site for their people. Cemeteries and sacred spots across the Kombos
are being desecrated as a result of land grabbers and speculators action in
collusion with local leaders and politicians at the national level.
Residents along the Badala Parkway corridor, frustrated by
government inaction in taking measures to stop the rampant encroachment that
threatens both the environment and the quality of life, are joining forces with
plant, fruit and flower sellers – who have already been served with notices to vacate
- along the Bertil Harding Highway to bring their grievances to the Minister of
Local Government and Land in the form of a protest against the de-reservation
of a highly environmentally sensitive area.
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Credit: Green Up Gambia, an environment activists group is the primary source for the section on the Badala Parkway and supplemented by our own sources on the ground who provided the photos of the area.
