In Evergreen Loving Memory Of The Former Minister Of Trade, Former Minister Of Economic Planning & Industrial Development, Former Minister Of Environment & Labour under Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara
“Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un”
“From Allah we came, and to Him we shall return”
On Monday, 11th May 2026, in New York (USA), the hand that drew the Kombo Coastal Roads on the back of a notebook finally rested.
Hon. Mbemba Jatta, former Minister of Trade and former Minister of Economic Planning and Industrial Development, former Minister of Environment and Labour, Member of Parliament for Kombo South, and son of Gunjur, has returned to his Lord.
The Gambia did not lose a loud man. It lost a deep man.
It did not lose a politician who shouted from podiums. It lost a statesman who built from spreadsheets.
It did not lose a name in the newspapers. It lost a nation-builder whose name was written in roads, in dignity, and in the gratitude of the poor.
Today, the Kombo Coastal Road will drive you home, Honourable.
And Bintou’s Point will keep your chair warm forever.
- The Man Who Served Numbers and the People Who Lived Behind Them
Mbemba Jatta was not a man of slogans. He was a man of statistics.
A statistician by training, he understood what many politicians never learn: that behind every figure is a family, behind every deficit is a hungry child, behind every trade statistic is a mother at the Port of Banjul selling her groundnuts.
When he returned from his studies and took charge of the Ministry of Economic Planning, Trade and Industrial Development, he did not come as a master. He came as a servant.
Those who worked under him testify: he received young officers returning from the University of Maryland not as juniors, but as sons of the soil returning to serve.
He taught them that public service is prayer in a different posture.
While others sought microphones, Mbemba sought matrices.
While others courted cameras, he courted calculations.
In the silence of spreadsheets and the discipline of data, he designed the Economic Recovery Program (ERP) and the Sustained Economic Program (SEP)—the frameworks that, in the late 80s and early 90s, had The Gambia competing with Singapore in re-export trade and port activity.
For a brief, shining season, the Port of Banjul was the busiest port in the sub-region.
Ships docked, goods moved, and young Gambians found work not by knowing a minister, but by knowing their job.
That was Mbemba’s Gambia: competence over connection, arithmetic over arrogance.
- The Architect Of Kombo and the Generosity Of The “Lansarewars”.
Let history record it plainly, so no military junta or passing time can erase it:
The Kombo Coastal Roads were born in Mbemba Jatta’s notebook.
Where others saw bush, he saw asphalt. Where others saw sand, he calculated growth.
The roads that opened Kombo to commerce, to schools, to clinics, to hope— those were his brainchild.
The military junta that came in 1994 implemented his plan. History will judge them. But it will also record who conceived it first.
And yet, for all his mastery of numbers, Mbemba never became a prisoner of them.
He was a “Lansarewar” of Gunjur — the indigenous landowning family of Kombo.
But he did not hoard land like a miser hoards gold. He distributed it. To poor families. For free. To build homes.
In Mandinka society, land is not just property. It is dignity. It is identity. It is belonging.
Mbemba gave it away the way Prophets give water: without ledger, without camera, without condition.
That was his faith in practice.
He was the man who, in 1987 in Antwerp, visited a colleague’s sick father in hospital and slipped cash for incidental expenses —not for show, not for thanks, but because need was present and he was able. He fed the body, eased the burden, and walked away before gratitude could make him uncomfortable.
He sat at Bintou’s Point in Kerewan. He drank at that well. He laughed under that same mango tree.
He was of the people, not above the people.
III. The Last of the Gentlemen Ministers
Mbemba Jatta served under Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, in a PPP administration that, for all its flaws, believed that governance was a sacred trust.
He was not a vociferous orator. He did not need to be. His oratory was in results.
He was not a political showman. He was a policy architect.
He was not a man of noise. He was a man of substance.
In an era when public office has become a synonym for self-enrichment, Mbemba’s life is a rebuke.
He proved that you do not need a microphone to move a country.
You need integrity, a pencil that tells the truth, and a heart that bleeds for the poor.
When the 1994 coup shattered the PPP government, it did not just end a regime. It ended an era of quiet competence.
The Port of Banjul lost its rhythm. The ERP and SEP were abandoned. And the Gambia began a long, painful detour.
Mbemba went into exile in the United States. But exile could not exile his love for The Gambia.
He remained, to the end, Gunjur’s son, Kombo’s servant, The Gambia’s quiet giant.
Conclusion: The Mbemba Covenant — Lessons for a Nation That Forgets Its Builders
"Let the Roads He Drew Carry Us Back to Ourselves"
So what does Hon. Mbemba Jatta leave us, beyond grief and memory?
- True Power Is Silent Competence
In an age of noise, Mbemba proved that the most transformative leaders are often the quietest. He moved the nation not with speeches, but with spreadsheets.
- Lesson For The Gambia:
Stop electing orators who cannot calculate. Start electing accountants who can govern.
- Land Is Dignity, Not Commodity
As a “Lansarewar”, Mbemba could have fenced every inch of Gunjur.
Instead, he gave it away to the landless.
Lesson: A leader who hoards land creates slums. A leader who shares land creates citizens.
- Public Service Is Worship
He taught young economists that coming to work was a form of “ibadah” (worship).
Lesson: Until every civil servant sees their desk as a “mihrab” (prayer direction), The Gambia will not rise.
- Legacy Is What You Build When No One Is Watching
The Kombo Coastal Roads were drawn in silence. The poor who got land never saw a camera.
Lesson: Stop building for Instagram. Build for posterity. Posterity remembers.
- Generosity Is the Highest Form Of Wealth
He gave his last change in Antwerp. He gave land in Gunjur. He gave time, advice, and dignity to everyone he met.
Lesson: A nation is not rich because of its minerals. It is rich because of its givers.
- Final Benediction
Hon. Mbemba Jatta,
You were the accountant of hope.
You counted not just numbers, but lives.
You calculated not just GDP, but dignity.
You designed roads not just for cars, but for futures.
Some men speak. Mbemba, you built.
And the roads that you built will speak for you forever
May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala grant you Jannatul Firdaus, the highest garden, without trial, without reckoning.
May every grain of sand on the Kombo Coastal Roads be recorded as “sadaqah jariyah” (voluntary charity) for you.
May your grave be widened, illuminated, and cooled with the mercy of the One that you served in silence.
Our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies are hereby being extended to our beloved sister Mariama, to their children, to the people of Gunjur and Kombo South, to the PPP family, and to all Gambians:
Travel well, Honourable Minister.
The road that you drew will carry you home.
Soon the mortal remains of this illustrious son of the Gambian nation, this quiet giant of Gambian local politics will transported to his native Gambia and laid to rest where he belongs —among the people that he loved and served.
Hassan Gibril
(The Old Man, A Witness To Quiet Greatness)
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