The problem in Gambia seems indicative of what has happened so far with Y2K glitches. First, the International Y2K Cooperation Center (www.iy2kcc.org)reports severe problems with Government infrastructure with power outages and government agencies shutting down, and then a day later the same site claims there are no Y2K-related problems whatsoever. And it blames a few media houses for even reporting the issue when it was the World Bank and government run site that reported the condition "yellow" in the first place.

ABC news online is one of those to report "significant power outages while air and sea transportation, the financial sector and government services have been crippled." The original report from the government was clear that the entire blame was not Y2K but - and get this carefully - the blame was due to a lack of internation assistance with help to fix the Y2K problem. So because of that the government has now declassified the prolbem as Y2K related. Bizzarre but true.

-- Ron Sellar (y2kbook@telusplanet.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

Sunday January 2, 12:12 pm Eastern Time Gambia perplexed at reports of Y2K problems ABIDJAN, Jan 2 (Reuters) - An official at Gambia's Y2K task force said on Sunday his country was working much as normal and he was perplexed and angry at reports of problems with computers in government offices and elsewhere.

``We are getting normal electricity, the telecoms is fine, as you can see, the e-mail is functioning, the banks are OK,'' Papa N'jie told Reuters in Abidjan on a particularly clear phone line from Gambia's capital, Banjul.

The West African country was singled out on the website of the International Y2K Cooperation Centre as having Y2K problems, especially in government offices.

A BBC website, citing this source, also mentioned power outages and forecast widespread disruption to air and sea transport, the financial sector and government services.

N'jie also e-mailed Reuters a statement that called these reports ``erroneous in the extreme.''

``The central bank, the energy, telecommunications, financial, transportation and government sectors have not reported any Y2K- related problems as indicated in the reports,'' the statement added.

Other residents of Banjul said life was going on as normal, with water running and television programmes showing. Government offices reopen on Tuesday after the New Year holiday.

N'jie said it looked like someone had misinterpreted information on the Cooperation Centre website.

``We have a national command centre, nobody has reported anything there,'' he said.

``We have been working on this for two or three years and right at the end it is being spoilt. We are very, very angry indeed.''

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-- LOON (blooney10@aol.com), January 02, 2000.