By: Nyima Sillah
The Chinese ambassador in The Gambia has said the Sanyang incident could have been solved if the local people had called his embassy attention in regard to their bitterness against the fishmeal factory.
His Excellency, Ma Jianchun addressing members of press on Thursday during a two-session press briefing held at the Chinese embassy in Bijilo said “Chinese people and their African colleagues in the fishmeal factory are total innocent, and therefore (I’m) appealing to the Gambian government to ensure that the lives and properties of all Chinese nationals and Chinese investments in The Gambia are protected”
He explained that if local people have some uncomfortable feeling or bitterness about the fishmeal factory they could setup coordination mechanism to settle the differences through dialogues rather than chaos.
The Ambassador went on that if any foreign investors violate local rules and regulations the problem should be solved through legal channel to formally oppose any form of attack on the foreign investors. “It does not matter whether the investor come from China or other countries,” he noted.
“Chinese people and their African colleagues in the fishmeal factory are total innocent, and therefore (I’m) appealing to the Gambian government to ensure that the lives and properties of all Chinese nationals and Chinese investments in The Gambia are protected”
The Chinese government, Ambassador Jianchun said, attaches high importance to environment protection and “regarding to the pollution, the Chinese embassy attaches high importance to the factory and we conduct some investigations and learnt that those factories do not use any harmful chemical or any high substance during the fish procession.”
He however stated that a proper solution to the waste water pollution is to build a round pipe exhaust to it for the linkage of the water into the sea, since such water provides abundant nutrients to the fish in the sea and it will also reduce bad smell with no harm to the environment.
“Ministry of Environment has already required the fish meal to do so and the factory is following the requirement to make it. We always ask the Chinese investors to pay more attention to environment protection abide by laws and regulations of The Gambia and work in hand with Gambian people in other to contribute to Gambia’s social and economy development,” Ambassador Jianchun stated.
He went further that, Foreign Direct Investment is an important drive for the economic development of a country so it benefits social economic development in many ways and it exists in so many countries.