By Sulayman Waan
The Gambia government has been slammed over the rise in coronavirus cases in the country by one of the area councils in the country and described government action as “failure to plan and prepared in containing the virus on time”.
In a statement shared with The Voice by Yuba Jawara, the vice chairman of Basse Area Council read “The Government failed in planning and preparedness in the containment of the novel COVID-19 Pandemic in The Gambia.”
The statement continued that “The indicators that manifests a failure from government is usually having to see officials make ill – decisions and not ready to take responsibilities especially when it has to do with difficult scenes and failure.”
“The Government continues to flip flop with its unenforced regulation which he believed health experts fail to advise Government properly so as to curb the disease in the country.”
The statement continued that “the experts only acted irrationally and irresponsibly when thing seems worst in the country” adding “about three months ago health experts warned the government about a surge of Covid-19 in July to August, 2020 if preventive measures are not set and strictly enforced.”
The statement urged the government to enact “legislatures or policies to help in addressing the spread of the virus in the country if (Government) decided to open the economy with empty programme and accept flights from COVID-19 hotspot countries to land in the Gambia.”
Mr Juwara statement stated further that the country experienced a clear institutional failure in this trying time caused by both executive and legislative, and this is “institutional failure for the government to embark on training to healthcare officers on COVID-19 respond when the disease already reached the country
“The legislative is ought to be a progressive thinking body and not an avenue where documents are thrown into the bin without thinking of how to make it look better for the citizenry.”
“It’s also an institutional failure for the president to tell us his Government has established Cabinet Subcommittee to provide policy guidance while the country has already registered the virus. This should have been in place well before registering a positive covid-19 case,” the statement added.
Mr Jawara urged the state to impose travel ban on hot spot countries especially from Europe, America and Asia as well as decentralized testing and treatment services to all provincial regions with a well-equipped treatment and isolation centers.