Some Reflections on Jewelry in Senegal

To talk about jewelry, I will propose an analysis in two parts: on the one hand, what is being done, the current situation and on the other hand, the ideal.

What is being done is a multitude of small workshops, each managed by a jeweller who does everything, all alone, who does not depend on anyone or any higher authority that manages the profession, who deals with collective problems and who has a precise idea of the future and improvement of the profession. It's every man for himself: you have your customers, you have your own way of doing things, you charge the price you want, you punch or not according to your desires, it's letting go pushed to anarchy.
On every street corner there is a small workshop. Has he been trained? How long did this training last? To which family does it belong? Is he a professional or not? Is he competent? Does he have good morals? No one knows. That's what exists is all about.

The ideal would be to sort through this multitude, to list the artisan jewelers. To do this, jewellers have organized themselves, they have created a national association to which all jewelers can belong, for this, it is enough to be a practicing jeweler, to buy the membership card, to have a workshop or to work in a workshop.

The National Association of Jewellers of Senegal, created in July 1992, under the impetus of Mr. Ngagne NIANG, renewed its bodies at a general assembly during which the new bodies described a program. And it is this program that could constitute the ideal to which the profession aspires.

This program consists of training jewellers because currently the training of young people is done on the job in a family jewelry store where they are installed because they have not made it in their studies at school, although this is not always the case because today we see young people with university degrees who have chosen to be jewelers. Once the training is done, the jewelers must be able to set up normally, that is to say give them access to credit to allow the financing of this installation among other things. Once established, the problem to be solved will be that of the raw material, the essential material for working, namely gold.
It should be noted that in Senegal there is no official or even private state body responsible for selling gold to jewelers. what we note is that there is no counter for the purchase and sale of precious metals in Senegal where jewelers can go to buy their raw material and work. The consequence is that there is no official price of gold insofar as everyone manages to obtain their raw material. The price of gold in Senegal is not officially known, it rises or falls according to demand or supply without all this being formalized. There is no gold counter in Senegal, all the more curiously because Senegal produces gold in its southern region.

Which is all the more curious and bizarre when Senegal is the only country where jewelry is a family affair, in fact one is born a jeweler one does not become one.
Once installed, the big problem that the jeweler has to solve is to fill the void created by the absence of this raw material. This lack of a source of gold supply causes major problems which are:

1. CONCEALMENT which is a consequence of the scarcity of the raw material, in fact forced as he is to stock up on gold in order to be able to work, and in the absence of a regular source of supply, the jeweler buys the gold offered to him by individuals wishing to resell their jewels. Every time you see a jeweler at the police it is nothing but a problem of concealment, it is never a breach of trust or a problem between jewelers, it is always gold that someone claims to have stolen from his mother to sell it to the jeweler. Only the establishment of a Comptoir can definitively solve the problem of concealment
2. The institution of an official price for gold could partly solve the problems of concealment. The absence of an official price for gold is also a consequence of this absence of a trading post because, insofar as the gold market is not structured, prices are set in the greatest disorder, each having its own selling and buying price. This makes tourists happy who offer ever lower prices, the trick being to tell the jeweler that the neighbor is charging a lower price to get him to lower his price as well.
3. The importation of jewelry is not really a problem, it is explained because nature abhors a vacuum. Wearing jewelry in a country where jewelry is elevated to the rank of family is a necessity and not a luxury. Even a maid with her small salary feels the need to adorn herself. So if jewelers can't satisfy this need for jewelry, this demand for jewelry, for the reasons cited above, someone will have to satisfy that need somehow. It will be a trader who finds that there is not enough supply when it comes to jewelry and will exploit this niche by importing jewelry to sell it and fill the void. And this is all the more possible since the legislation authorises the import of jewellery! The principle in this matter is authorization and raw gold is assimilated to a raw material subject to a customs tax of 26%. Insofar as jewellers are not rich enough to operate without bank credits, nor sufficiently equipped and trained to satisfy all the demand at attractive prices, this import even becomes desirable until jewellers can organize themselves to meet this demand. Only then can we envisage a halt to these imports or at least a restriction.

The conditions that will allow a successful career in jewellery:

1. It is necessary for there to be sufficient gold by the creation of a NATIONAL COUNTER FOR THE PURCHASE AND SALE OF PRECIOUS METALS.
2. adequate tools, and at this level, certain heavy equipment, which is exorbitantly expensive for a single person, should be able to be acquired collectively by the corporation.
3. qualified and well-trained jewellers with diplomas issued by a recognized and officially organized training center.
4. An attractive and official price charged by all and known by all by both customers and public authorities. This price will also make it possible to solve the problem of concealment to a very large extent.
5. ACCESS TO CREDIT. When these conditions are met, jewellers will be able to turn to the banks and ask for personal financing to satisfy a large order, or even to the State for common financing to buy collective heavy equipment such as the chain-making machine which costs more than a hundred million. All the chains to complete the jewelry making are imported! The jeweller's financing cannot be done with the traditional banking system (project study-mortgage guarantee) which requires several months before the transfer of funds while in essence the jeweller needs to have the funds quickly to satisfy a customer in a hurry.

I would also like to deplore the absence of fairs, places where jewelers can compete in a healthy emulation that will help to whip the creative imagination of craftsmen. It is also the absence of competitions such as the MARTEAU D'OR which has already been organized, or the participation in fashion shows.
Professionalization also requires a strong organization that sets up a structure called the ABNS where people recruited for their competence work in charge of thinking and implementing the ideas put forward by the base, which is made up of jewelers who can then devote themselves entirely to their work in the workshop. This office would take care of the administrative work. To do this, it is urgent that monthly contributions be set and released on time to pay the operating costs of this office.
It is a profession of ambitious men and women, who handle a lot of money, an extremely rewarding profession because it produces added value, but which will live forever as long as the problems cited and decried for several decades are not solved, first and foremost by a firm will of jewelers to get out of it by themselves by making the necessary sacrifices and efforts, and if possible by state aid.
Otherwise, the jewellery industry will remain the poor relation of all the trades that make up the craft sector, even though it employs thousands of people.