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Economy, News

Gambia Names International Advisers To Tackle Debt, Ministry Says

Njie
Finance minister Mambury Njie

(JollofNews) – Gambia’s finance ministry has appointed advisers to help put its debt on a “sustainable path”, the finance ministry said on Monday.

Gambia has been facing a heavy debt burden with the International Monetary Fund warning the country against any new borrowing after its debt reached 130 percent of gross domestic product at the end of last year.

“The Ministry … has appointed Potomac Group as the international financial adviser, working with Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as international legal adviser, to assist with the development and implementation of a strategy to put the country’s external debt on a sustainable path,” the ministry said in an emailed statement.

Gambian President Adama Barrow, who won elections in December 2016, has vowed to revive the country’s faltering economy with sweeping reforms as he sought to draw a line under the erratic 22-year rule of his predecessor Yahya Jammeh.

Born of British and French colonial rivalry in the 19th century and surrounded by francophone Senegal, Gambia has suffered from grinding poverty, in part because of Jammeh’s volatile rule, during which thousands of dissenters were jailed and scores of businesses expropriated.

Most of Gambia’s debt was contracted under Jammeh, either through borrowing or the government’s taking on the liabilities of state-owned enterprises.

Ebrima Darboe, director of debt management at the ministry, said the appointments were part of the government’s reform agenda and was expected to boost growth,

“It is the government’s expectation that this initiative will be supported by a broad base of creditors, including creditors that have not provided the debt relief they committed in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries process,” he said in the statement.

Washington-based Potomac Group is a financial advisory firm specialising in helping governments on sovereign balance sheet issues. Thomas Laryea at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe has advised a group of bond holders of defaulted Mozambique sovereign debt in the ongoing debt restructuring.

(Reporting by Karin Strohecker, editing by Larry King)

5 Comments

  1. The Potomac Group is a well respected DC establishment with deep and long mutually beneficial relationships with many legislators on the hill.
    They are extremely expensive and have represented a host of Fortune 500 corporations.
    What exactly can they do for a poor country like The Gambia. Absolutely nothing of worth. Besides taking money we don’t have and can’t afford to pay.
    Here is FREE advice that will go a long way to save our poor nation from serious ongoing financial embarrassment.
    1. Spend responsibly.
    2. Stop depending on handouts.
    3. Hold our leaders accountable.
    4. Make the tough choices to reduce spending.
    5. Grow our own food.
    We don’t need to spend millions of dollars on some fancy Washington Boys to give us Bad Advice.
    God Bless The Gambia.

  2. This is another form of reckless spending. Barrow must get rid of this Mamburay Njie before he mortgages the entire country. What are we to gain from this?

  3. Just another example of wastefulness and utter cluelessness. When are Gambians going to wake up? What is wrong with us?
    All the opposition parties that claimed to have an alternative approach of governance to Yaya Jammeh are now represented in the government (executive), except PDOIS.
    And what time has shown, since the change, is that they are no better than Yaya Jammeh in managing the economy and our resources.
    Other than arbitrary arrests and illegal detentions, nothing has changed for the vast majority of Gambians: corruption, nepotism, extravaganza, wasteful spending, endless fanfare, sycophancy are all prevalent and probably more aggressive than before.
    And yet, these people (Barrow and Darboe-UDP) continue to attract more voters and draw ever larger crowds. What is the matter with Gambians?

  4. Keluntang, Lol,
    “What are we to gain from this?”
    Yaya Jammeh, being banned/barred from traveling to the USA.
    No such thing as a free lunch.
    Tell me one country, just one, which is more corrupt and murders more people than the USA?
    Please.

  5. Why don’t we ask the same debt management company to come and run the ministry of finance and economic affairs for us, hence we are paying Mambury and his team for nothing. There are of course Gambian experts qualified enough and with the (pre)requisite experience who could help drag us out of our debt crisis. For that reason, the coalition manifesto foresaw the creation of an experts data bank to close the very specialist loophole that just seems to be confronting us head on. How dumb can one be, to abandon such a magnificent document? The answer is: the irredeemable.
    __________________________________________________
    @ Bax: the crowd is the quantity I mentioned in another thread. If you want to debate with Adama‘s or Ousainou‘s UDP followers on real issues such as the path to socioeconomic excellence, they take to their heels helter skelter.
    Please have a look at my conversation with Kemo (kinteh) for example. He is very present in the virtual space political discourse arena and I commend his proactive and constructive stance. Unfortunately, his arguments for the UDP, leaves much to be desired in the substance department. I have on many occasions ask him questions regarding the vision of the UDP (cum Ousainou) for The Gambia and Afrikka, and he makes a dasher all the time.
    Those crowds symbolize the chain of mental colonization that we still haven’t gotten rid of the necks of our people. And mind you, before we are done, many of us might not be around that long to see that day. That’s why we have to school the next generation of freedom fighters and liberation warriors to hand the baton to, for that ultimate day.
    _________________________________________________
    Adama, Ousainou and their minister must all go. They have proven that they are not the answers to the sufferings of our people. The level of corruption, nepotism and blatant thievery in this country has never been witnessed before.
    All their kids and the kids of their relatives are all studying in Europe and Amerikkka at our cost. We all know why. Just as under Dawda and Yaya, their plan is to establish their elite dynasties over us and keep the majority in the shackles of poverty and death. Wicked souls they are indeed.
    _________________________________________________
    It’s left to you and I, to prevent that from happening by educating our people in all fronts, even at the cost of imprisonment and death.

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