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Gambia Green Boys’ Enterprise Failure Before Venture
Thursday, 01 September 2011 00:44
A realistic assessment by Sarjo Bayang, Enterprise Development and Project Consultant(Opinion) - Having to mind your business and the responsibility to run your own enterprise venture are two different matters. The promise by President Yahya Jammeh to settle July 22 revolution Green Boys through self-employed enterprise ventures is technically unsound, politically misleading, and financially unviable. It is a failed venture long before start.
Failure before starting
Prudent entrepreneurs will warn of the risks about starting a business before any venture. The move by President Yahya Jammeh thinking of settling unemployed Gambian youths in small business without feasibility studies amounts to blind risk taking. In the first place, youth unemployment is directly linked to lack of
employability skills and host of imbalances needing critical attention. What any caring and serious government of Gambia could have done is to initiate capacity building schemes that is no mere political showcasing. Current government under leadership of Yahya Jammeh parades with a scheme known as the National Youth Service Scheme NYSS. This starts with a paramilitary training. It is no detailed skill training to prepare youth for life long responsible productive engagements. Some of those who passed through the NYSS ended up in the in army and police jobs. Others remain unemployed. Many are brain washed as patriotic youth who join the ranks of 22 July Green Boys and Girls camps. There is no enterprise development programme directed at building youth capacity for self-sustaining business venture as alternative employment option. Over 17 years since the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council AFPRC seized power so much was promised to youth of the country. With everything said and done, the youth population now counts as most helpless and least developed in capacity to contribute towards national development. Most of the schemes created in the name of youth only served the personal economic interest of those handed funds opened to squander and eventual failure.
Evidently, more Gambian youth resorted to the dangerous sea route to reach Europe at very high risk of drowning or getting deported once caught. Recently as in the past, a number of youth have been arrested and punished for merely risking their own lives using clandestine traffickers for the wild journey abroad.
Amid all that failure it beats curious reasoning that the president of Gambia wants personal intervention to create economic opportunities for the nation’s jobless youths where conditions are totally out of feasible bounds and the enabling business environment exists in no small way.
The biggest failure is that of the entire government not having a properly studied policy framework for enhancing youth entrepreneurship. Of course that is impossible where the instruments are not just there to start with. In short, there is no proper policy from the Trade and Finance institutions of Gambia government open to gainful utilisation and fulfilling implementation by stakeholders. Therefore, the move by president Jammeh in calling on Green Boys and Green Girls to venture into enterprise is a showcase of building castles in the air. It is recipe for total failure before start of business.
Entrepreneurship is no game of chance
Starting and running a business venture is no game of chances. It is a total a combination of responsibility, commitment, and what is generally referred to as achievement motivation. Every business goes with risk. That is not to suggest anyone is free to venture blind risk and yet expect business success. Those chances are very rare and hardly repeat. People have to be motivated for going into business. Some people equate running a business to simple art of money making. It does not go that way. Most people will readily run their own business than being on someone else’ payroll if it was so easy. Being employed goes with conditions. Running your own business is like being your own boss. Why then don’t we have many more self-made bosses compared to the number of people lining up to be employed? It is no game of push button operation where you choose how much profit runs through.
Look around your immediate locality and see how long it has been when the small corner shop began operations. You wonder if stock levels ever shift position. The entrepreneur is seen running around stocking, selling, borrowing, paying and being paid. What we don’t see quick enough is the quantum jump in economic and financial position that many dream of when first getting on business. That does not mean those who stay longer in business equally command all the prospects of succeeding quicker than late starters.
Big difference between successful and failing entrepreneurship lies in the region of financial prudence where funds are efficiently employed in ventures with faster returns on investment. At some times slow moving goods and services are seen to be attracting fat profits. Other goods and services have small profits but fast returns. To decide where resources are most suitably rewarding is no chance taking. Experience and effective decision making count so much when parting with financial resources or allowing an input of finance capital for growing the business. Some businesses hold large reserve of idle financial resources. Other businesses retain large stock of goods for long periods paying for space and other related costs. Anyone seriously considering business as self-employment enterprise needs to look beyond the horizon of milking money as being that easy.
Like any other employable skill, entrepreneurship is a skilled that is acquired. Some experts argue that entrepreneurs are born not made. Whether it is acquired by nature or developed by nurturing entrepreneurship is no joy ride for just anyone to venture. Examples are many. Some people have abundance of employable skills. These can technical, vocational, or some specialised skills learnt over many years. What they may not have is the enterprising drive to be self-employed.
You wonder why so many doctors, lawyers, engineers, technology experts and other high-skilled specialists stay in employment and not getting on their own business to be self-employed and open doors to employ others. Ask how many of those very high-skilled persons have the entrepreneurial ability to start and run a venture on self- employment. That is exactly where we have to appreciate what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Political wild promises are not enough to churn youth entrepreneurs. Without proper Business Plan, there is no convincing business case.
Failure of Gambia Youth Enterprise
Preceding the now fantastic venture to transform idle Green Youth Movement into gainful entrepreneurs was the defunct Youth Development Enterprise YDE headed by jailed former Jarra Member of Parliament Baba Jobe. Little was known about the true ownership of that failed venture until President Jammeh turned around to declare General Manager Baba as having wrecked the business. From what we all saw not many youth found gainful employment in that scheme where General Manager Baba Jobe earned his ticket to maximum security Mile 2 Prisons. The rest is history. It is clear from that experience Gambian youths have been named for profit making ventures where only few ever know what goes on.
If Youth Development Enterprise as it turned to be was the private venture of President Jammeh, how is that different with the now Green Youth Enterprise scheme? The most proper way to ascertain if the youth entrepreneurs are in self-employment or simply working to amass profit for a business man-president Jammeh is by putting all cards on the table. Up to now there is no public information available where it is indicated that the Green Youths will be operating a bankable enterprise for long term self-employment. Is that green youth concept of Col Gadaffi of Libya?
The selection process for participants of this scheme appears to be purely political. That means other Gambian youth with burning desire to succeed will have to stick their necks as unwilling supporters of president Jammeh and his AFPRC regime or risk getting denied an opportunity created in the name of whole Gambian Youth. The big question is whether or not Gambian youth want to build further capacity to make informed choice of life ventures or to be dragged along unknown avenues leading to untested waters.
Not the job of President to settle youth in business
With all the frustration and increased ambition to stay on as president of Gambia for life, Yahya Jammeh has to know there are rules to the game. To win hearts and minds of Gambian unemployed youths goes beyond political sweet talks. In some Gambian tradition, domestic animals are named for children. Not named after them for that could mean something. For instance, a child is told particular goat, sheep, cow or donkey is his. It makes the child happy that he owns something of some worth. The reality is that the father would dispose of the asset without consulting the child in whose name it is placed.
Running a state is no simple domestic task. President Jammeh has to be reminded that before him the position of Gambian presidency was already established. It is not the special task of a person named Yahya whatever Jammeh to change the function of Gambian presidency. There are duties and responsibilities required for whoever seeks to be president of Gambia. The position is a public role bound by rules and regulations. Unfortunately, not many people in Gambia truly know the Job Description of Gambian presidency. Those without any clue of what the job of Gambian president calls for may include even the current post holder Yahya Jammeh. That is no assumption. It is a reality of life we are faced with. Judging by how Yahya Jammeh behaves as president of Gambia, he stands to be challenged about whether he does know what the job of Gambian president entails.
The body of evidence before our eyes cannot be numerated. From hiring and firing public servants by whims and caprices to going into private business without due process add up to show how divorced Yahya Jammeh is from the serious duties of serving as president of a nation. The list goes on. Yahya Jammeh looks around and fabricates needs. Jumping about with claims of having cure for HIV/AIDS is normal for any citizen in private capacity. Once someone occupies such high public position like president of a country, it is improper to carry out certain roles. For Yahya Jammeh, his engagement in many private ventures goes to explain how least he respects the position of president. He does not care about rules and regulations knowing fully nobody dares question his misconducts.
It is with that type of confused orientation and lack of respect for the role of president that Yahya Jammeh thinks he is able to meddle with all sectors without observing rules or as protocol demands it. He does so without consulting with rightful experts and institutions. For example employment is under rightful government institutions and authorities. Why can’t Yahya Jammeh respect these competent public servants and leave them alone to study the sectors affected and come up with viable solutions? It is because Jammeh does not trust in the capabilities of others may be largely because he so badly lacks one. It is seriously critical that Yahya Jammeh will jump about getting into public ventures without consulting with rightful public servants. That is risky to the extent where nobody takes responsibility for failures. It is worst when you consider 17 years passage of time with a president of trials, errors, and massive failures. This highly politicised Gambia Green Youth enterprise venture is another blind risk bound for failure long before start.
The challenge now lies with all relevant government institutions responsible for turning the economic and financial engine and to keep the system propelling. The person of Yahya Jammeh may still be called president of Gambia. He may command all the titles of this universe. However, the capability and commitment to move a nation cannot be trusted into the hands of a single operator. Yahya Jammeh does not love Gambia more than even the newly born. Together with his gang of people who call themselves patriots, they care no more about Gambia than the rest they termed as enemies of Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council AFPRC government under Yahya Jammeh as leader of the revolution.
Certainly with any venture of settling members of the Gambia Green Boys and Green Girls association to take up business, they have to be adequately prepared. By observation of what now obtains, everything indicates serious failure in the making. Let relevant Gambia government institutions come up with proper plans if they are serious about development and advancement of Gambia youth as bankable human resource base. After all, entrepreneurship is a special skill that is not readily at the finger tip of even the most trained experts in other skills brackets. Not even the most developed nations have enough supply of genuine entrepreneurs. It is least fulfilling for the president of lowly skilled youth population to promise churning entrepreneurs without the required skills and enabling environment. Gambia is long way from the state of making an enterprising youth propelling economy. Where developed nations are struggling to contain economic challenges, it is fantasy of high scale to expect poor country like Gambia balance the books with income from unprepared, untrained and least motivated youth entrepreneurs. The situation is a failed start for failing end.
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Comments
So,if this venture goes ahead,whoever is tasked with running/managing it should know that the same faith awaits him/her.Because,have no doubt about this,it will FAIL too.
You only have to look at the financial pressures that were put on the Youth Development Enterprise,not least of which was maintaining the Presidential Jet and staff.
Cynics could even be excused for seeing this as another money laundering venture to hide his ill gotten wealth.
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