By Buba Gagigo
The Gambia For All (GFA) under the leadership of Bakary Bunja Dabo, held its National Congress on Saturday and exposes some alleged corruption Scandals in President Adama Barrow’s government.
“The new administration, already at the end of its sixth year in office, has its landscape littered with disturbing reports alleging corruption and malfeasance plus other well-publicized scandals. The scandalous Semlex contract, the theft of fertilizer at Government depots in Soma and Kerewan, the mysterious gift of vehicles to NAMs,
“reports of missing cash and products at the fuel depot in Mandinaring, the scandal caused by allegations of grave wrongdoing about the issuance of fishing licenses scandal, the management of Covid funds and the GTB funds, etc, do l need to say more? How about the mother of them all here I refer to mushrooming reports of the mass backdoor grant of Gambian citizenship to aliens and their conscription to make them vote in our elections,” the party leader of GFA said.
Hon Dabo said with such serious allegations, ‘a serious Government’ would have lost no time in instituting an independent judicial investigation into the reports.
“But not the Barrow Government whose standard position in the face of uncomfortable reports is to pay scant heed in the hope that they will go away,” he continued.
“Why such an attitude? Some put it down to insensitivity to public feelings. Others conclude, perhaps more realistically, that the authorities, including at the highest levels, simply lack the will to confront corruption and illegality in the government” he said.
The GFA party leader says all too often, reports are either ignored altogether or only half-heartedly investigated by the ‘ubiquitous’ “Barrow Task Forces” just to prepare the ground for Sweeping them under the carpet.
“In short, the new 6-year-old administration is still to show any serious inclination to make a break from the incompetent and corrupt ways of the dictatorship. All too often what is made manifest is the tendency to continue the same old discredited governance practices, including the onerous burden placed on meager public resources by the very costly and ostentatious lifestyle adopted by the state.
“In light of the well-known budgetary constraints, the level of emoluments and other benefits fixed for those falling within the leadership brackets, excessive Costs of travels at home and abroad by senior officials [including bloated accompanying delegations and resort to chartered commercial aircraft| are all wasteful practices suggestive of leadership that puts the self above the needs of the people? Again, they are lifted straight from the Jammeh administration’s handbook,” he concluded.
Gambia For All (GFA) conducted their National Congress on Saturday at the friendship hostel in Bakau.