By Mustapha Jarju,
The former 2021 presidential aspirant and leader of the People’s Alliance Party, (PAP) Mr Ebrima Tabora Manneh has called on the Gambia government through President Adama Barrow to facilitate arrangements for the compensation of those victims affected by the heavy flood last weekend across the country.
Mr Manneh in an interview with The Voice claimed that thousands of households across the nation were affected by the downpour and that compensating these victims is the proper thing to do which every genuine individual should commend and would advise to the government to do considering the huge number of citizens affected.
It “is unfortunate our government is very poor and we have so many things that we need to do in our country to get things right, flooding and windstorm are one of the problems. But misplaced priorities are causing us a lot of problems which include a poor economy, which if not improved, the government might not be able to solve most of these problems. If Gambians are the most active players in most of the economic sectors and the government is able to make a lot of money, some of these problems can be solved”, he stressed.
He acknowledged that it was a remarkable step that the President and his delegation visited affected areas within the Greater Banjul Area to see the actual problem and know how to solve it. However, the government should look at the allocation of properties in which Physical Planning should be involved so that they can cater ways for drainage to ensure when people are constructing, they at least increase the height of their concrete level.
“Look at the roads we built, and look at the Jabang road which is becoming a heavily populated area, there is no effective drainage system, they didn’t cater for this hence they were not in our plans and if that is not done, this problem will continue to reoccur,” Manneh said.
If these problems are not solved, he said the country will continue to witness floods every year while the government will identify a few people to give small tokens while the flood will repeat itself, he observed. Therefore, he called the government to look for a long-term plan to solve the problem.
