Ho many Gambians can afford Taf’s land resale and housing deals that charges Gambian’s D8,000 and D12,000 respectively per month? How many government officials grappling with Gambia’s token salary scales can afford Taf’s plots of land asking for these exorbitant monthly payments with 20% down payments of over D100,000 Dalasis.
These are plots of empty land not bigger than 15 by 25 meters in Sanyang or other areas Taf is acquiring under very questionable circumstances, only to make fortunes on the back of indigenous land owners caught in perennial poverty?
These were some of the intelligent questions Dr. Lamin Conteh, a renown Gambian, and to our knowledge, the only Gambian with a PhD in accounting asked in this exclusive interview with forGambia News Saturday. Some of the plots, he added were being sold by Mustapha Njie and his Taf Global for sums of D230,000 for just a small plot of empty land.
Taf wants buyers to pay the monthly sums above for a period of ten years. That is, a buyer will pay a down payment of 20 or 24% and continue a monthly payment of D8,000 or D12,000 depending on location and size. Taf, by the end of the ten year deal harvests nothing less than D980,000 and over D1.1 million Dalasis, the erudite professor of accounting enumerated.
Taf is getting almost infinitely richer and richer under present conditions, if unfettered by any regulation. “I don’t have any grudge against Taf. But such deals need to be fair and affordable to the average Gambians who rely on foreign remittances, ” even to put food on the table, he continued.
The eloquent professor later made a heart-touching exhortation to Gambia’s political parties to cast aside all differences and vote Barrow out in 2021. He recounted that since barrow came to power, consumer good prices rose 20%, making the cost of living very tough for the masses.
“I know some people say the first successful coalition has been shattered by deceit, thus no one should trust any subsequent one.” But the selfless professor re-echoed his disinterest in candidacy for any political party.
The same Barrow used the diaspora Gambians to climb to office only to jettison them upon reaching his goal. “They said it’s us versus them,” referring to Barrow and his team in burning the bridges post the 2016 Jammeh ouster. We don’t even know where to begin while transcribing this historical interview with one of Gambia’s finest thinkers. Please tune to our radio to follow the rest of the interview below.
