Courtesy of Foroyaa newspaper

http://www.foroyaa.gm/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2400

We the members of the Gambia Workers Union
REALISING that prices on commodities are sky –rocketing daily thus making very few to be able to meet the basic necessities of life and salaries whilst pensions have not increased by the same amount or percentage or CPI; that the Government of The Gambia and the Salary Revision Commission have done a good job by giving increments,

CONGRATULATING His Excellency The President, Prof. Dr. Alh Yaya A. J. J. Jammeh, in trying to develop the Agriculture Sector and the 30 Million and 20 Million Dalasi on wage and salary increases from grade 1 to 6 and onwards. But that we further need to recommend for a 100% increase on wages and salaries to low income earners.

AWARE that the current inflation was not about to be reversed and have blamed the West for years of deeply flawed policies; that if we want to get enough food, there is need to:

1. Produce a lot more food fro ourselves.
That Donor response is only to send food aid when shipped aids from USA are very expensive.
As oil prices worldwide are falling to half the level of last year’s, the petrol and diesel prices in the Gambia remain at an all-time high. Who is profiting from this profiteering? It is indeed true that oil prices have gone down from $148 per barrel to $38. Since oil is utilized in transportation and industrial production, its rise in price does lead to inflationary spiral. It is however incomprehensible that governments still attribute their problems to high fuel prices.

WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment to establish a Consumer Protection Agency in the absence of a Consumer Association and whose role would be to determine fair prices for commodities, in collaboration with those who sell them and the Chamber of Commerce. The fuel price in the country should indeed be revised upwards when there was a rise in oil prices.

As for the private sector, where workers are members of the Union with bargaining power due to a united industrial workforce, we are able to achieved increases on salary, wages and motivating incentive through collective agreements.

We urged the workers to give more support to the Labour movement in order to strengthen, enhance and consolidate and enjoy the fruits of our labour.

ON AGRICULTURE, The government has to set out a credible vision and mission for agricultural and rural development. There is growing public concern about the rising food and fuel prices. If the country is to become self sufficient in our staple food, by 2020, we must adopt a ,Back to the land’ approach through a massive crop expansion program, dubbed ‘the Grand Agricultural Offensive for Food Security’. W e can copy the Malawi example. Malawi’s food production went from l.6 million to 3.2million metric tons in one year and which was sustained for 2 consecutive years. If The Gambia does not adopt similar strategies, we would soon find it difficult to feed ourselves due to the food crises.

WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Ministry of Agriculture and Civil Society Organisations to increase rice production by 500,000 metric tons annually. The State has to create the right conditions since the country has the right environmental conditions for high yields as stated by His Excellency The President Prof. Dr. Alh. Yaya A. J J. Jammeh.

There exist enough land to surpass the 500,000 metric tons target. The soil and climate in The Gambia is as good as Thailand from where we import much of our rice. We have the irrigable land on both North and South banks of the country. What is needed now is the financial and material resources to support CSO. The present time requires objectivity and realism, because we are at a point of no return, due to Global Crises and Climate Change.
WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment and the Minister of Agriculture to establish a National Productivity Organization and Council and also an Integrated Land Agriculture Management Committee. The evolution of national productivity organizations, despite the fact that the concept of productivity has been known for a long time, establishes productive institutions to promote a productivity movement nationwide. It took place only about 50 years or more ago. The U.S was the first country to start the modern productivity movement with the establishment of the War Production Board during World War 2 to initiate studies to improve the performance of U.S industries through efficient allocation of resources. It took a lead in restructuring the European economies under the Marshal Plan. The U.S shares its resources, technologies, management systems and practical methods with other countries, starting with Britain and then extended the financial and technical assistance later to Asia. This initiative and initial funding sparked the worldwide productivity movement. It is a concept of creating a new social order to improve the quality of life through the tripartite efforts of employers, employees and government.

We are prepared to help, move these noble initiatives from roles, activities, products and services, governance and organizational structure.
Gone are the days of strikes and now are the days of decent work social dialogue, social justice and fairness.

ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE Discovering that, our road infrastructure is getting spoilt and eroding, due to rain fall and soil erosion, overloading cargo vehicles above their net weight and tonnage and the lack of road maintenance thus creating difficulties for drivers to do their job effectively and the resultant mechanical problems.

WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Minister of Works, Infrastructure Development to introduce weighing bridges for cargo vehicles plying in and outside of the Gambia and a road maintenance team.

WE ARE URGING the Ministers of Health and Environment and the Kanifing Municipality, Banjul City Council as well as the General Public to ensure that gutters are well cleaned and with slap cover to enable the free or easy flow of water during the raining season.

And further suggest to the Minister of Works to check the quality of the Amdalaye/ Barra Road Project which is poor and to also construct the road from Buniadu to James Island to ease the burden on the road users as well as the tourists.

CENTRAL CAR PARK IN KANIFING MUNICIPALITY
We highlight that at a meeting of the Transport Union/GNSC held at the office of the vice president, it was recommended that the former Amdalaye Transport Service Carpark at Bakoteh will serve as a Central Carpark in Kanifing Municipality.

Since 2006 the place is not handed over to the Municipality.
WE ARE URGING the Minister for Local Government and Lands to urgently handover the Bakoteh Carpark to serve the said purpose and which will contribute in eliminating motor traffic congestions, minor accidents and the pollution of the neighborhood with emissions that causes health hazards such as cardiac, respiratory problems etc.

EMPLOYMENT PAYROLL TAX BILL
WE ARE EMPHASIZING that the provision of the employment payroll tax bill is violated by unscrupulous employers by importing foreign labour when our skillful and local experts are applying for such positions. Gone are the days when we lack skillful people. The skillful workers therefore need to be protected.

WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment and the Expatriate Quota Board to include organized labour into the inspection team to remedy the situation.
WE ARE URGING the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs to amend the EPTB and legislate local expatriates to be the assistant to foreign expatriates.

WE ARE RECOMMENDING that overtime and bonus to be excluded from tax because overtime is a punitive work and bonus is an incentive which is given once a year. Also reduce the indirect tax to operators x 50% and GTA to stop full board. The Government should also consider the 20 Euros Air Port development tax on Tourist per person, discount the room rate because it is reducing the number of Tourist in order to convince Tourist who are saying that Gambia is becoming too expensive. Otherwise, the Tourism sector may die just like Agriculture. Now it is reported that Tourists are now going to Cape Verde. This year is bad, next year may be worst. Mr. Thomson and Tui UK will not be coming next year.

WE ARE FURTHER RECOMMENDING that where General Manager is a European, the number 2 should be a Gambian with a narrow salary gap, since the difference in their salaries is always very wide.
WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment that all companies should have efficient Human Resource Manager/gress, as employers use workers to work excess overtime without pay or with underpay, wrongful termination, redundancy, dismissal of employees without complying with the provision of the Labour Act. These safeguards lead to the creation of employment security and a conducive work environment.

Employment of sustainable livelihood for economic development contributes greatly in reducing poverty. We must add love and service, subtract hate and fear, multiply faith and courage, divide by truth and cheerfulness, change our attitudes, have initiatives, clarity, desire, determination, commitment and discipline and take control of our socio-economic potentials and champion the cause of National development.

It is high time we prepare as a nation and build the internal structures and organization. It is what we should do for the nation and not what the nation should do for us. Togetherness, we build a better feature for the up-coming generation. Where ignorance is Bliss and is funny to get wise.

LICENSE CHARGES TO TAILORS

WE LAMENT that tailors are charged per machine head instead of the petty trade license like other trades which is definitely unfair.
WE ARE URGING the Minister of Local Government to introduce license charges to tailors like other trades and in this way government will realize revenue to the fullest.

DOCK WORKERS PORT LABOUR BOARD

AWARE that, dock workers were forced to retirement since 1st of August 2007 by the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA) and taking what they own from the Shipping Agencies i.e stevedoring charges when they are not employees of GPA. How possible is it to retire a person you did not employ? This is not Rule of Law.

WE ARE SUGGESTING to the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment to convene a tripartite meeting in order to bring an amicable settlement among the parties and that is,

(A) Dock Workers to establish a stevedoring company,
(B) Interested individual to buy shares
(C) To establish an independent board for disciplinary measures
(D) GPA to be responsible for cargo handling charges.
This is the bottom line, in ensuring industrial peace and justice.

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Freedom is possible only in a democratic political system in which governments are accountable to their people, the rule of law prevails and freedom of expression, association and belief are guaranteed. This can only be achievable where freedom of the press is found.

WE ARE ADVICING journalists to always refresh their memories about code of conduct and ethics and principles of reporting because journalism is a dynamic profession.

WE ARE CALLING UPON the Inspector General of Police and the general public to investigate thoroughly the missing Chief Manneh and to apprehend and prosecute the criminals that killed Deyda Hydara in a court of law.

The public must help the Police on national security. The Police alone cannot do it. AWARE of the fact that salaries are very low and that house rent is very expensive, institutions like the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) will never run on losses only when is mismanaged. However, companies are defaulting on their social security contributions.
WE ARE URGING the SSHFC to urgently recover land areas in order to introduce low cost housing schemes to enable low income earners to benefit and which shall contribute in alleviating poverty.

WE ARE EMPHASIZING that if we get fed up we could result to legal action against the SSHFC.

WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE Convinced that women in agriculture contribute remarkably to GDP and need to be promoted and protected,
WE ARE RECOMMENDING to the MOA and MOTIE to assist women in agriculture with seedlings, fertilizers, marketing, storage, preservation facilities. A policy also needs to be put in place on the marketing of our local agricultural produce within the tourism industry and for the Ministry of Water Resources to introduce a policy on insurance of well diggers by their contractors and stop well digging during the rainy season.
The HONOURABLE EDWARD FRANCIS SMALL’s stature at the Gamtel round about in the city of Banjul should be re-erected, in honour and recognition of his great contributions in emancipating West African Countries, particularly The Gambia, from British Colonial rule.
WE ARE URGING The MOTIE, MOFA, Banjul City Council, the Trade Union movement, and other interested individuals to put heads together and re-erect the E.F SMALL stature to preserve his legacy