Football clubs deliver ultimatum, threaten boycott

GFF president Mr. Mustapha Kebbeh and VP Mr. Buba "Star" Janneh

To charge ten members of the Gambia Football Federation and one Ministry of Youth and Sports official as the National Sports Council (NSC) has done is a travesty of justice.

The members of the Executive have taken full responsibility for fielding over-age footballers during a Confederation of African Football (CAF) tournament.

The fielding of over-age players that has plagued Gambian as well as African football is as old as the introduction of internationally-sanction tournaments by football's governing bodies like FIFA and CAF.  The Gambia's two FIFA U-17 World Cup and two CAF U-17 Championship, all in 2005 and 2009 respectively were largely attributable to the fielding of overage players.  Cheating is glorified and has become a way of Gambian life under a regime that views football as a political activity, and if you can cheat and get away with it, do it.  But when you are caught, I will not only throw you under the bus, if you survive, I will throw you in jail.

Jammeh proceeded to inject his huge personal fortune in football as investment, to use it as a propaganda tool to keep the youth vote in his corner by awarding cash prices and plots of land to "football champions." He has helped aggravate the plague until the footballing authorities introduced new measures to make it difficult to cheat.  Now, he is lashing out at the Football federation for committing an infraction that he, Jammeh, has encouraged and condoned since he seized power in 1994.  There are two culprits here:  the GFF and Jammeh.

The 22 representatives of football clubs have risen to defend the GFF officials by pointing to a National Sports Council (NSC) created under the regime of Yaya Jammeh to control football by stacking the membership with his political cronies and a disproportionate number of government Ministries/Department. The clubs are demanding the release of the GFF 11.  The clubs are citing Part III Sec. 1 (a) as reason to allow the GFF to utilize provisions under its own constitution to take disciplinary action since the federation did not "cease to operate as a national sports association as provisioned in the NSC Act.  

Consequently, the clubs have issued an ultimatum that if the suspensions of the officials are not lifted unconditionally within seven days,  they will boycott all league matches and other activities organized by the Interim Committee.  The suspension and the appointment of an Interim Committee by the Minister of Sports is violation of the Statutes of the GFF and the NSC Act of 2000 according to representatives of the 22 football clubs.

The National Sports Council Act 2000 is considered by many as the genesis of Gambia's sporting problems. The law gives the semblance of a democratic control of the game by the various associations, as required by the respective international governing bodies.  When Part II, Sec.4 (a-g) of the Act provides that the Chairman of the NCS is appointed by the Minister and the Minister of Education is a member of the Council, and so are three nominated members by the same Minister, where is the balance.

The clubs that are supposed to run their respective sports are now taking instructions and command from the Minister, and by default, Yaya Jammeh.  No wonder, football, track and field and others sports are in a state of complete chaos because the Gambia is unfortunate to have a minister who is over his head with no managerial experience with a high degree of partisanship that has irreparably damaged Gambian sports just as Yaya Jammeh has damaged all of Gambia's institutions since seizing power illegally almost twenty years ago.  

The National Sports Council Act of 2000 a very bad law that must be repealed are the earliest opportunity. Sports should be administered by the stakeholders who are the clubs and other sporting associations and not politicians. to assure a majority.  Until then. we stand in support of the GFF, GNOC and similar national sporting federations in their fight to take politics out of Gambian sports.

Some thoughts on the current online media fuss

The online Gambian media appear to run on two types of business models.  One, maybe two, appear to be operating a free market-based model or 'for profit' and the others operate 'not-for-profit' or 'nonprofit' models or what, in America, is referred to as 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4)  

Whereas not-for-profit and nonprofit models are used interchangeably by ordinary folks like you and me, to the IRS the two models are not synonymous, and therefore are treated differently for tax purposes.  We will not deal with this aspect because it is very complicated even for the tax lawyer.  

What we should be concerning ourselves with, and the question we should be asking is whether "The Struggle" is better served by the "for profit" model or the "not-for-profit" model, given the fact that the former must generate revenue to meet payroll and remain viable, whereas the latter tries to break even or even run as a loss - a loss usually defrayed by voluntary contributions. "For profits" cater to everyone who can afford the goods or services produced, and "nonprofits" serve a limited number of groups targeted for free or subsidized rates.  Take your pick.

As long as online media have staff in their payroll on full time basis (or 'run as a business'), they must operate profitably, and to operate profitably, they must generate traffic and to generate traffic, they must attract listeners.  How do they generate traffic to attract listeners?  Different media have different ways of generating traffic.

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of the above models, and in America, everyone is free to pursue the "American Dream", and the market-based model is the quickest way of attaining the Dream. What I find objectionable, however, is to pretend to be operating a 501(c)(3) when in actual fact something totally different may be happening.  

All Gambian online media must level with their readers and listeners, of which I am one.  Let me repeat, all models are legitimate and everyone is free to price their advertisements, construct other forms of revenue streams, including appearance fees, with the proviso that everything must be above board.  "Lu nekka nyu tekko chi yon." roughly translated "Let it be transparent and legal".  After all, we demand that of the dictator in Banjul at every opportune moment.  Opponents of Yaya Jammeh, including my very self,  must demand the same or higher standards than those demanded of Yaya Jammeh.  

The Central Bank is a threat to the financial system

Perhaps it is time for the Central Bank The Gambia (CBG) to be "taken over" by a competent set of central bankers because it is under-performing under current and previous managements.  It has been so sloppily managed that it were a commercial bank it would have been declared bankrupt.

Not that central banks don't go broke; they do.  The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, as its central bank is called, went broke with the bank's balance sheet succumbing to Zimbabwe's 100,000 percent hyper inflation.  But bankrupt central banks, however rare, rely of the public national treasury i.e. the tax payer.

We do not expect the CBG to find itself in a Zimbabwe-like situation, but unless prudence and strict adherence for banking principles are observed, the financial system and the economy they were trying to safe, as they claim, that led them to "take over" Access and Keystone Banks, will come crashing down, and with it the hopes, dreams and aspirations of million and a half Gambians.

Last week Monday, we were greeted by the news that two Nigerian-owned banks were being taking over by the Central Bank for reasons that we have covered on several blogs and Facebook posts.  Exactly a week later, we were greeted with yet another press release from CBG informing us that Access Bank has been returned to its owners but not before they paid US$ 15.2 million (D600 million), and a promise to pay another US$ 4.8 million (D198 million).

These payments could not have been for the minimum capital requirement (MCR) that the CBG raised to D200 million, to be paid in two tranches.  This is so because the payments are huge and besides we were assured back in January 2013 that 12 of the 13 banks operating in The Gambia had fulfilled this requirement. Cronyism and weak management aside, the Central Bank has been caught fudging the books and cooking up up numbers that led to IMF sanctions in the past.  It is only reasonable, to be skeptical about any  figure that they brandish and an explanation they give.   Transparency is lacking in the CBG, and it is that lack of transparency that is the bigger enemy than the critics of the regime and CBG management.

In its May 5th, 2014 press release which the official government newspaper refused to carry for reasons only known to the management of the Daily Observer, Gambians were told that the CBG was stepping in to take over Access and Keystone Banks, and in doing so assures respective clients and the public that "the two banks would continue business as usual, and depositors are assured that the banks have ample liquidity to meet current and future obligations. '

We find the first press release very misleading, coined to conceal the real financial health of the two banks and maybe other banks.  There may be ample liquidity to cater to the needs of the current need of clients, but it is highly questionable whether it can address future obligation which is part of the reason why the CBG stepped in in the first instance.

The return of Access Bank to its owner after a week under CBG supervision and why its owners are required to pay US$15.2 million now and an additional US$4.8 million for a total of US$20 million or approximately D800 million to recapitalize the bank.  This figure reveals that Access Bank was operating underwater for an extended period time and yet no signal or red flags were raised by the CBG, thus exposing depositors to unacceptable risk until last week.

One  plausible explanation is the Access Bank was carrying in its books a huge none performing loans.  It is not surprising that the financial system was exposed to this dangerous level because of the weak supervisory capacity at the CBG as evidenced by one IMF report after another warning about this condition.  What we would like to know, what was the cause of the exposure?  Who were Access Bank's clients who accumulated such huge sums, and for what purposes were they contracted.        

Jammeh plans to arrest GNOC Executives

Now that six members of the Gambia Football Federation (GFF), three senior staff have been a former secretary general have been arraigned before a court today, we have now come to learn that Malang Jassy, a senior official of the Ministry of Youth and Sports has also been arrested, bringing the total of arrest to eleven.  They have all been charged with "negligence of duty" in fielding over aged players in a CAF-sponsored tournament.

The regime arrested the eleven and tried forcing them to resign. When they all refused to resign, they were charged with "negligence".

We have now learned from reliable sources that Executives of the Gambia National Olympic Committee are the next targets of the Jammeh regime for arrest.

The regime is still nursing a grudge when the Minister of Youth and Sports retreated from a decision that saw the Executives of the GNOC fired and replaced by an Interim Committee when threatened with sanctions if the decision was not reversed.  The Youth and Sports Minister had ordered paramilitary forces to occupy the premises of the GNOC and barred staff from entering their offices, effectively shutting down operations.

However, it took a scathing letter from IOC in response to the unilateral and illegal act of the Minister, including demands that the paramilitary be withdrawn, hand over the offices to their rightful owners and to refrain from further infringement on the rights and privileges of the GNOC guaranteed under the Olympic Charter.

The IOC warned the Minister of Youth and Sports in its 14th April letter that "protective measures or sanctions" will be applied if the regime fails to accede to the demands of the Olympic Movement.  The Minister advised Jammeh to dial back the rhetoric and quietly allowed things to return to normal, but not before a response was sent suggesting to the IOC that "moving forward,..the Gambia NOC puts its house in order...and to have a respectful and harmonious working relationship with Government."

The arrest of the Executive members of the GNOC, according to reliable source, appears imminent if they refuse to resign from their positions.  They have tried it with the GFF Executives and when they refused to resign they were charged.  The same ultimatum will be presented to the GNOIC officials, once they've been arrested.  If they refuse, they will be charged.  Of what, that remains to be seen.

Until then, we urge the Executives of the GNOIC to follow the footsteps of the GFF by refusing to succumb to the whims of a very corrupt, inept and vicious regime.  To do otherwise, tantamount to willful abandonment of the fundamental principles, spirit and ideals of the Olympic Movement, and leaving your Gambia Football Federation comrades in the battlefield.          

The Sports Minister must go, and he must go now

Alieu K. Jammeh, Minister of Youth and Sports

Mr. Alieu K. Jammeh, Minister of Youth and Sports has the dubious honor of being the first and only Minister of Youth and Sports to have been sanctioned or threatened with sanction, not by one but by two major international sporting authorities.

FIFA was the first and IOC less than a month ago to threaten the regime of Yaya Jammeh with sanctions for interfering with the independence of the the Gambian Football Federation (GFF) and The Gambia National Olympic Committee (GNOC). Minister K Jammeh is evidently the point man for the dictator who appears bent on molding Gambian sports to his image and liking. Jammeh sees sports as politics; as a means of advancing his political agenda, using his successive Sports Ministers to achieving his goal.

But there is something special about this particular Minister.  He appears to lack the basic faculties as a rational human being.  He keeps repeating the same infractions of the rules of both FIFA and IOC by dissolving the local sporting organizations with the full knowledge of what that means.  He keeps repeating the same infraction , expecting different results.  The definition of this syndrome is insanity.

Minister Jammeh has completely turned the entire sporting fraternity on its head, and has sent the entire membership of the GFF Executive Committee to jail for, what is referred to as infraction of the Sports Council Act.  The Executive members of GFF are being accused of fielding over-age players during a CAF competition between Gambia and Liberia for which they have taken full responsibility.  Yet, they were rounded up like a bunch of criminals and thrown in jail.

To target this set of officers to punish is purely a political move, designed to put the preferred candidates who enjoy the support of Yaya Jammeh and his APRC minions in place of the current Executives who were recently elected in an election that the preferred candidate of the regime were defeated.  This regime does not believe in a free and fair elections because Jammeh and his cronies know they are so unpopular they will lose.  They cannot be elected dog catchers if they tried.

Back to Alieu K. Jammeh; he's not only inexperienced but lack the basic managerial wherewithal to run a stall at the Albert Market much less run a Ministry.  He is causing embarrassment to Gambians and Gambia, must, therefore be removed as soon as possible.  This is the Minister who dispatched the paramilitary to Olympic House, headquarters of the IOC-recognized GNOC, seized its property and disbanded its Executive to be replaced by an Interim Committee of his own.  He was threatened with sanction and he backed down.  He's at it again.  We already have dictator Jammeh, who is enough an embarrassment.  To add another Jammeh to the circus is too painful for Gambians to endure.  Please get rid of this guy, and do it now.
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In our second installment, we will look at the role the National Sports Council Act plays in the current flux

Muddling through

This week has been a bad week for "The Struggle."  Factional cracks are apparent everywhere after accusations of embezzlement and other unsubstantiated malfeasance that have yet to be proven.  But the damage has already been inflicted, with or without proof, and which may or may not have been the accusers' intent.  Things cannot stay the same.  They will have to change.

 "The Struggle" which is the name given to a loosely-assembled groups of Gambian dissidents in the United States, Europe and West Africa has faced challenges in the past, which they've succeeded in overcoming, not necessarily because they've been adequately addressed but because they were not as visible and accountable now as they were then.

Thanks to the online media which, in itself, is proving to be a blessing as a curse by publicizing the activities of "The Struggle" as well as blowing it apart through irresponsible reporting and outright partisanship and personal agendas.  There also exist a clear and discernible partisan divide within the media which is normal and expected.  We wish they'd stop pretending that they are non-partisan and - to borrow Fox News' faux mantra - 'fair and balanced'.  The online media has contributed immensely to the muddles messages filtering through the various organizations that constitute a significant chunk of "The Struggle."

We believe that the muddled messages of the 'civil organizations' in the dissident communities are a direct results of conflicting and competing political philosophies and leanings of the major players in the Struggle which further aggravates an already desperate condition.  A return to their respective political parties will reduce the current confusion and allow the non-party affiliates to mount a credible international advocacy against Yaya Jammeh.

Within what we now take to constitute "The Struggle" goes beyond CORDEC, CCG, GGC and NRNG to include individuals who are not affiliated with any of the above groups.  It just so happens that the most influential of the lot are the non-affiliated individuals who happens to be the proprietors of the online radios and newspapers.

And if this category of membership of the Struggle insists, as they always do, that they are impartial in their reporting, as their profession dictates, yet they take on overtly partisan stance against other members of "The Struggle" because he happens to be a Ousainou Darboe, Omar Jallow, B.B.Dabo or Mai Fatty, it inevitably poses a problem.  It exposes leaders of political parties who decided to, in good faith and in the common interest, join a broader coalition to fight the enemy that is Yaya Jammeh.

We have seen Ousainou Darboe, Omar Jallow, B.B. Dabo and Mai Fatty attacked personally and the records deliberately distorted because they decided, wrongly, to place themselves and their respective political parties in the line of fire while Halifa Sallah stays out of harm's way - a sensible political move even though we opposed the reasons PDOIS advanced for staying out of Raleigh.  Political parties, in our view, should remain political while the other organizations do what they do best - advocacy.

Which brings us to the latest entry into "The Struggle", the National Resistance Movement of The Gambia (NRMG) into the scene with a full-blown press conference to introduce its leaders.  They describe NRMG and themselves as a political organization and politicians respectively with military backgrounds that will not hesitate to use military means as last resort to remove Jammeh from power.  They are not interested, according to its spokesperson, in political power but yet they claim to be a political grouping and not a military one.  They are retired military officers but they do not consider themselves soldiers.

To be fair to the NRMG, they have tried, through their spokesperson and through a couple of press releases and radio interviews but regrettably it left people like us in more confused state than before their arrival.  The muddling through continues with an additional layer added to the Struggle that, in our view, further complicates an already difficult situation.

We continue to suggest that the political parties ring-fence themselves from all the structures of the Struggle as GMC has done.  And those who belong to and active in party politics should rejoin their respective political parties and help party leaders build, revitalize and rehabilitate them.  Those interested in a political career but do not subscribe to the philosophy of existing party should take steps to form their own and join the political fray.  A realignment along political allegiances and leanings is inevitable, and the time is now.  It will reduce the muddling through that we are witnessing currently.  

Arab Gambian Islamic Bank sold to Muhammed Jah

Muhammed Jah, CEO, QuantumNet

We made a verge reference, in today's blog, to the impending sale of the Arab Gambian Islamic Bank (AGIB) to a Gambian businessman because we couldn't confirm at the time the salient features of the deal.  

We can now confirm that negotiations were concluded last week and the Board of Directors of the AGIB has approved the sale of the Nigerian-owned bank to Muhammed Jah, a prominent Gambian businessman and owner and CEO of QuantumNet, an IT company.

Details of the deal are not known, but the Central Bank which must give its approve for the deal to be consummated.  Approval of the sale is expected within the next few days.  

When we asked about AGIB's balance sheet, our source indicated that it is not as strong as it could be, given the overall state of the economy and the keen competition in the banking sector as a result of the numerous banks in a very small market, leaving them with small margins.  Of course, AGIB has a niche market with a growth potential, as the only bank that provides Islamic banking to a large Muslim population.

Our source who has a wide and authoritative knowledge of Gambia's banking/financial sector said, in response to our question about AGIB's strategy to survive a very strong competition, "AGIB has the potential to grow to be the third largest bank if he, (Muhammed Jah), knows what he is doing."   One of the things he must do, according to the same source is to bring in competent staff.  In short, bankers must be allowed to run the bank if AGIB is to survive the competition.