Chief Lamin Darboe of Kombo South has denied reports that the Chinese owners of a Fishmeal Factory are encroaching into the community’s women garden as “untrue” and that people are exagerating the issue.
Chief Darboe was speaking to a local radio station amid a viral video showing women leaning before a Cartapilla in their vegetable garden in angony as the Chinese moved to destroy the vegetables in the garden. They said the land falls in their complex.
But chief Lamin Darboe defended the Chinese saying “let me set the record straight, that area falls within the fishmeal complex. It is nobody’s farmland, it is withn the fishmeal ground.”
He said it was only five women who are making the noise after they were allowed by the fishmeal plant to do gardening work on the land portion, despite the fact that they were not authorised by the plant management.
“It’s only five of them, I say five, F.I.V.E, five. No family owns that area, those women who are doing gardening there are not even residents of Gunjur,” he said.
He expressed his disappointment in people whom he said don’t know how things unfolded but “just making exaggeration and blowing things out of proportion.”
He said the Chinese have complied to all protocols with the National Environment Agency, adding “I will not sacrifice Gambian life for any material gain.”