President Adama Barrow leaving for day long inspection of ongoing infrastructure projects
By Fatou Sillah
His Excellency, President Adama Barrow, accompanied by the Minister of Works and other senior government officials, on Wednesday embarked on a day-long inspection tour of ongoing infrastructure projects in the North Bank and Lower River Regions.
The tour, which began from the State House in Banjul, was aimed at assessing the progress of key road construction initiatives and other development efforts.
Speaking to journalists during the visit, President Barrow emphasized that road construction remains a top priority for his administration, underscoring its vital role in national development.“My slogan is no infrastructure, no development. There is no country in this world, a developed country, without roads. So obviously, building roads is really very important as far as development is concerned, and we will continue to build roads in this country,” he said.
The President further highlighted that the government’s infrastructure agenda goes beyond roads to include schools, health facilities, electricity, and agriculture.
“The Ministry of Works, NRA and my entire government. It’s our policy that we have to build roads. We have to build the infrastructure of this country, not roads only. We have visited schools. We are building schools. We are building health facilities. We are building the electricity infrastructure and agriculture. We are doing it all at the same time,” he said.
Despite financial constraints, President Barrow reaffirmed his administration’s unwavering commitment to infrastructure development.
“Despite our limited resources, we have been very, very innovative, and we have been very, very focused and we have been very committed. I will borrow this from Nelson Mandela. He said if you are committed, you can achieve anything in life. So we believe in that slogan, and definitely we are really committed to that, and we are doing everything possible in order to fulfill the social projects that we have,” he said.
Expressing satisfaction with the progress and quality of the work, the President said he is optimistic about the timely completion of the projects.
“Obviously it is a very good project, and I’m very, very happy also with the progress. We are almost there. I think by June, definitely. I’m very sure that we will come and open this road officially,” he said.
The tour covered several major roads under construction, including the Hakalang Road Project, the Baddibu Banni-Salikenni Road, and the Kiang West road network stretching from Sankandi to Kiang Janneh Kunda, Karantaba, and Missira Tenda.