Stay away from The Gambia iCommerceRegistry

It is amazing and pretty enthusiastic to see the launch of new initiative and modernization plan for The Gambia, but the Vision 2020 of the dictator is just another fantasy to lure investors and potentially to defraud them.

In Africa, private property is not protected: spoliation, confiscation, and treason are widespread. When the Union of the Comoros (a small country in South East Africa) were unstable, the Governor of the island of Anjouan started an identical scheme. The aftermath after some years?… He had to flee the Comoros to Bénin in fear of his life: his dictatorship, fake polls results, and policy made the population fed up. His scheme was completely abandoned, and the Central Bank of the Comoros as well as its President took years to tackle and clean up all of it. If you are serious about a long term business: The Gambia is not for you. If you are a kid with a startup idea, a temporary or seasonal business for a year or two: even a local club registered in your country will be more appropriate.

Apart from the morality of giving money indirectly to support a dictator, the country and its scheme face considerable problems :

* it is not part of the Apostille Convention: in the real world, you need to authenticate documents, like your certificate of corporation ;

* it has no history record, it is completely new and could change from one year to the next, with just a political change ;

* the so called stability of the current President is non-existent, as himself came into power by a coup détat ;

* there is only 1 bank of international dimension in The Gambia, that is The Standard Chartered Bank

* the website of the registry is funny and inaccurate (keep reading).

French tax papers in The Gambia?

At the bottom of this page of their website there are tax papers from… France!

Seychelles landscape in the Gambia?!

Their Enterprise Zone project is just probably a scheme to donate to the government, as you can see the beautiful picture of a Seychelles landscape.