Amadou Samba: Gambia's Groundnut Industry Lives

For Amadou Samba, Gambia’s groundnut industry bears many similarities to a phoenix that has risen from its ashes. State counsel turned businessman, Mr. Samba uses his excellent chamber work and representation, operational expertise, and powerful fiscal stride to turn sputtering old barges of enterprise into smooth-running, high profit ocean liners. The transformations that effected the revival of Gambia’s groundnut production are not unlike the many overhauls that Mr. Samba has had to manage in order to resuscitate some of his less than booming businesses.

Gambia’s groundnut industry plummeted due to several factors. Once selling the country’s biggest cash crop, the sector died of gross mismanagement. Amadou Samba saw Gambia’s groundnut estate fall to pieces at the turn of the millennium, from erratic rainfall, seed shortages, and a faulty marketing system allowing crops to be bought on credit and groundnut farmers to go for months unpaid.

By 2007, bank loans for buying seeds, fertilizers, and tools for growing groundnuts had gotten harder to grant. Farmers fled their posts by the hundreds. “Many of the farmers in the region have to pull their children from school while they wait to be paid,” shares Lamin Sanno, a former groundnut farmer from Bantungding village.

During the government’s intervention in 2008, the first order of business was abolishing the practice of credit-buying as government-built Gambia Groundnut Corporation set out to sell groundnuts strictly for cash.

Next, as local demand for the product shrank and end-season surplus grew, producers were moving points-of-sale across the border. Lines of export for the crop were rebuilt, strengthened, and promoted.

Today, with a $14 million financing grant from Saudi Arabia’s International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation in the procurement of groundnuts, Gambia’s erstwhile industrial failure is slowly getting back its crunch.
More information on Amadou Samba can be seen at gambia.gtbank.com/amadou_samba.

The Inspiring Story of Amadou Samba of Gambia

As a boy, Amadou Samba of Gambia had only one dream: to be a great lawyer someday. Through hard work, perseverance, and his innate talents and intelligence, he was able to fulfill this dream and achieve a lot of other things he never imagined or planned. Today, he stands as one of the most respected, most accomplished, and well-known names in The Gambia.

To prepare for his journey to law school, he sought employment at the magistrates’ court division of the Gambian judicial department as a clerk. Impressed by his talent, he was awarded a government scholarship to study law at the University of Nigeria at Enugu, where he graduated with honors. Amadou Samba did Gambia proud when he became one of the legal counsels of the Gambian delegation to the UN Law of the Sea Conference in Jamaica. This is one of his biggest achievements as a lawyer. After completing his post-graduate studies in International Law, he decided to put up his private legal practice.

Samba attracted a lot of clients, representing a number of newly-set up companies. Having been exposed to the business world, he decided to venture into entrepreneurship, particularly in construction. His contributions to the development of the Gambian construction industry earned him awards such as the Gambia Man of the Year award, given in 1992, and the Millennium Medal in 2002 awarded by none other than President Yahya Jammeh of the Republic of Gambia.

Amadou Samba continues to be an inspiration to his fellow men, and his story is proof positive that with talent and hard work, anything can be possible. More information on him may be found at gambia.gtbank.com/amadou_samba.

Amadou Samba: Putting The Gambia on the Global Industrial Map

Amadou Samba has braved many storms for his country, The Gambia. Before 1986, Gambian industry was uncharted territory. The West African country, predominantly agricultural, had the soap ingredient groundnut as its principal cash crop and chief export.





Having only gained independence in 1965, however, the nation’s largely undeveloped economy was not the least bit complemented by its dry, vagarious climate. A continually lackluster production of groundnuts and other flagship crops resulted in a steady decline in its gross domestic product and foreign exchange earnings, causing The Gambia to fade into the black waters of economic obscurity.





This whirlpool decline in exports, investments, and consumption as an offshoot of meager economic activity saw a sea of change when Amadou Samba entered the world of Gambian commerce. Spending the first ten years of his career in civil service as a state counsel, Samba gained a formidable reputation as a lawyer, attracting clients left and right with his solid chamber work and representation when he decided to practice privately in 1985.





Testing the waters of industry, he took the role of trust managing director for construction magnate ALFRON (Gambia) Ltd. in 1986. He then established Moskam Fisheries, raising production to such heights that made fish and fish produce the country’s second biggest export.





Going against the tides, Samba founded a series of commercial firsts for The Gambia – GACEN, the nation’s first cement manufacturer, Gamwater, the country’s premiere water bottling company, Gamcorrugate, the nation’s pilot manufacturer for corrugated materials and boards, and Gampetroleum, the nation’s first oil storage, retailer, and distributor.





A beacon of industrial innovation, operational virtue, and social development, he leads The Gambia’s Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation as chairman of the board of directors.





More on how Amadou Samba sailed The Gambia through the high seas of industrialization is available at gambia.gtbank.com/amadou_samba.php.