No Meat In Gambia’s Markets!!!

By M.G.O. Gaye  

Good  Morning Pa,

I would like to extend my sincere prayers to you during this holy month and encourage you to keep up the good work of educating, informing and raising the political awareness of all Gambians, especially those of us who are outside and trying to make the best out of a terrible situation. I was dismayed to learn about the scarcity of meats and sugar that hit the Gambia recently. I could not believe what I was reading from your Newspaper.  I then contacted my people back home and the answer was devastating for me. Up until today, there is neither meat nor sugar for sale in the Gambia and it seems the butchers are quietly refusing to sell. My contact told me that even the vultures and dogs are also on a sitting-strike. Daunting Phalanx of Vultures and dogs has started occupying the main road leading to Brikama, and drivers have to negotiate their ways out of these wild carnivorous beasts.

You see Pa, we don't need any lecture in economics to know that prices are determined by the movements between demand and supply assuming, of course, everything is equal (ceterus parebus). Meaning no unfair intervention by the authorities. The meat crisis started when our greedy Head of State announced to fix the prices of meat for obvious commercial interest. Laws were hurriedly passed and soon Police started arresting, and Magistrates imposing stiffer fines to those unsuspecting butchers.

Hold your breath whilst we do some mathematical analysis of these prices. If a standard bull weighing 220 kg can be bought for D25,000.00 to D30,000.00 at Abuko ( incidentally, now one of the properties of Yaya Jammeh), there is no way that a kilogram of meat can be sold for D60.00 or even D80.00 profitably.  A 220kgs bull will ultimately be reduced to 180 to 200 kg after leaving out the head, legs and stomach albeit these now fetched good deals in the markets. Now a simple arithmetic will show that selling 200 kg at D60.00 will yield a turnover of D13, 200.00, and if sold at D80 per kg that will translate into a total revenue of D16,000.00. The question is does it make sense to buy a bull at D25, 000.00 and then sell it at D16, 000.00.? The answer is a definitively NO. If there was no intervention from Yaya Jammeh, today meat will be available in the markets just what use to happen well before he (Jammeh) was born and continued up to the time of his intervention. 

A further comparison with our neighboring countries will also reveal that the same kilogram is being sold at CFA 1,350 to CFA 1,400 in Senegal, Mali and Bissau. Therefore, D80.00 per kilo is relatively at par with meat prices within the sub-region. Why then controlling the prices of meat at the level of butchers and not the cattle dealers who are in charge of the bull market? Well, those with informed judgment will tell you that Yaya Jammeh did the whole thing purely for commercial exploitation as well as bogus political propaganda. I just cannot imagine having Ministers for Trade, finance, Economic Planning and Employment  with good economic staff just sitting idly by and watching foolishly when our economy is being strangled by inept and unsound policies of a commercially enterprising Head of State who continue to cause untold sufferings to the masses.  Very soon, the vultures and the wild dogs of Abuko will start attacking human beings if the meat crisis continues. Then Yaya Jammeh will know that you can terrify Gambians, but you can never tame a hungry and wild beast. For then a prey is a prey and nothing else.

Thanking you very much,

M.G.O. Gaye