By Yusupha Jobe
The President of the Gambia transport union (GTU) has vowed that all commercial vehicles coming from Senegalese will not be allowed to enter the Gambia effective 19 February 2020.
“On the 19 February 12: am in the morning no Senegalese commercial vehicle will be allowed to enter the Gambia. And we do not care whether the vehicle is on transit or not all we are doing is to also protect our interest as a country. So the transport union in partnership with the drivers and vehicles owners starting from Wednesday 19 February 2020 will put stop to all Senegalese commercial vehicles entering the Gambia.”
“We are no more going to observe any ECOWAS protocol of free trade and movement of people because all what the Senegalese transport union has recently done by putting a blockage to our commercial passenger vehicles to enter their country is seen by their government. So we are also going to protect our interest with no compromise,” he said.
Omar Ceesay made the statement on Monday in a press conference organized by the Gambia transport union at Abuko Car Park following recent denials of commercial buses belonging to the Gambia transport service cooperation GTSC to enter the Senegalese border of Karang and Amdalahi by its transport union that has led to one Gambian passenger being injured during the blockage.
He stated that the Gambia transport union has for several times engaged its Senegalese transport union counterpart on various humanitarian and diplomatic channels for negotiation this by formally writing and also engaging them into talks which he alleged are all being ignored the Senegalese transport union.
“We have used all different humanitarian and diplomatic channels as a transport union to make dialogue with our counterparts from Senegalese in order to resolve the problem of commercial vehicles entering each country’s borders. But any time we met to discuss what they normally tell us is “if the issue of allowing your commercial vehicles to enter our borders brought you for negotiation then there was no need to come because your vehicles are not going to be allowed.”
He alleged that in 2018 the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of people and goods was breached by the Senegalese government by putting a move to stop the cashew free trade between the Gambia Senegal which he said has led to many individuals losing their cashew business trade.
“If we can recall in past 3 to 4years the free cashew business trade was put off by the Senegalese government by closing their borders between the Gambia and Senegal which has led the country to lose a lot of money. It is that we do not want anything. So on the 19 of February 2020 whoever is a vehicle owner and a driver must stand to defense our interest.”
“And beside we are only not going to block the border entry of Karang, but including Farafenni, Basse, Soma and Seliti border entries. Are we the only nation to accept the ECOWAS protocol when others are not doing it? So, we are going to protect our interest,” he said.