By Adama Makasuba
President Adama Barrow has said the government is working hard to address the high price of food by investing in agriculture as the Gambian markets are hit by daily soaring of food prices.
Speaking to reporters at State House, Tuesday, Barrow said the high price of food doesn’t only hit The Gambia and his administration isn’t in charge for the high cost of commodities but his administration is working tirelessly to address the situation at hand for the people in the country.
“Cost of living is not increasing in The Gambia alone. It is not determined by the government alone but we are doing everything possible to make sure we invest into agriculture. I think that’s the only way that will help us to control cost of living in this country,” President Barrow said.
“We will industrialise our agricultural sector, we will take farming as a business so that we can produce enough to feed this country. So we will depend inward than outside. And I have always been saying this since I came to power that if you are not producing you will become a liability,” he added.
To avoid that, he said, “we have to produce that’s the time we can compete and control. Then our destiny will be in our own hands. The government is creating good environment to industrialise our agricultural sector,’ saying that will be the best solution.”
Meanwhile, he defended the stay of forces of the regional bloc, Ecowas, saying the country needed a backup force to help in reforming the security sector.
“I think people are misunderstanding what is the mission of Ecowas in this country. The Ecowas is not just here to help get Yahya Jammeh out, no. You know when I was coming to power, our security sector was really polluted.
“We needed to address security sector and we needed to reform. Out of those reforms we needed a backup force to support us to reform and part of this reform is also training. Right now, most of the State House Guards are training outside. We still don’t get the number for State House. We are still limited,” he said.