Member of Parliament for Kiang East
(Photo: The Voice newspaper)
By Landing Ceesay
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Kiang East, Hon. Yahya Gassama has told the Vice President, Badara Joof to convey to President Barrow that ‘people are hungry’ under his reign.
“Another serious concern is the daily rise in the cost of living in the country. People in this country are suffering. Every day you go to the market, you are faced with a different price of commodities. Today, you buy a particular commodity for a certain price, and the next day when you go, the price is up there. It seems like somebody, somewhere sits in one place and sends a message to a WhatsApp group and says increase the price of commodities to a certain amount,” Hon. Gassama said at the Parliament during an adjournment on Thursday.
He said People are suffering, and are barely making a living and that the number of people who go to bed hungry is increasing.
“So these are issues that we need to look at properly. So Hon. Vice President, when you go, tell the President that people are definitely hungry, people are poor, people are suffering in this country, and very soon it will reach desperation level. Because sometimes it is difficult, people are finding it extremely difficult to cook. People are very hungry in this country,” Gassama sent VP Joof to tell President Barrow.
On food sufficiency in the country, the Kiang East MP told the parliament that a country that depends on imported food for a greater part of its living is not secure.
“We are importing rice, we are importing sugar, we are importing onions, we are importing cooking oil, and we are importing almost everything. These are imported from other countries. Now given the current global economic problem, what do you think is going to happen? This is something that we need to consider. So, this is why we need to develop our agricultural sector,” Gassama said.
He further told the parliament that the country cannot continue to depend entirely on imported foods, saying “it is not possible”.
The lawmaker urged the Ministry of Agriculture to come up with policies that could promote food sufficiency in the country.
“This is why it is important for the Ministry of Agriculture to come up with sound agricultural policies that would boost food production in this country and encourage farmers,” he concluded.