Rescue the dalasi

Editor,

I am a loyal citizen of The Gambia who has the interest of the nation at heart. I am so deeply concerned with our state of affairs. Our leader, President Jammeh, have been urging the Gambian people to take up the most important areas of development such as agriculture, fishing and the rest of the business sector, but the response has so far not been so positive, and now we are facing the consequences of not heeding. And now the state of our currency is under threat.

First it was the 5 butut, then the 10 butut, and now it’s the 25 butut that is gradually losing its value completely. And believe me if we let them get away with this one, the next one on the line would be the 50 butut, and then the 1 dalasi coin. Last week I took an amount of two dalasi in 25 butut denomination to three different supposed Guinean shops around my area in Wellingara, only for these shopkeepers to reject my money. This, I strongly believe, should be taken as a serious crime against the nation.

In any case, in that state of anger and frustration, I demanded an explanation from one of the shopkeepers who could not give any genuine reason for rejecting my money, despite agreeing to the fact that it is genuine money. And then I was like, why aren’t you accepting it? She said ‘well, we aren’t taking it because when we take it to our suppliers to purchase goods they do reject it. I asked her if those suppliers were Gambians and she said no, that they were mainly Mauritanians, Guineans and other foreign nationals.

Talking about rejecting the 25 butut coins, there is another worst case scenario in Farafenni, which even requires more urgent attention. The traders at that market refuse the dalasi. If one wants to buy something, one has to pay in CFA, or else one would not get what they want. Our hundred dalasi note can’t buy you a candy in Senegal, yet we are watching them shying away from our currency and imposing their own in our country.
 
Where is this heading to? Does it even make sense? No it doesn’t, because The Gambia is not among the CFA monetary zone. Fellow Gambians, are we going to let a few unscrupulous foreigners dictate and play with our currency while we stand aside and look?  If it was the reverse, would we have the guts to do the same in their countries? Why are we putting first these foreigners before our own brothers and sisters? Why aren’t we putting our nation’s interest first?

It is said that the police is the community and the community is the police. Therefore I hereby appeal to the national authorities to take a bold action against this crime before it gets out of hand. And also the community at large should make it its point of duty and responsibility to make sure a stop is put to this unacceptable act, immediately.

Finally, I am urging all patriotic citizens of our great country to change our attitudes positively and remain steadfast, to protect and guard jealously what rightfully belongs to us and pave a better Gambia for our subsequent generations.