By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The shadow foreign minister of the opposition UDP Dr. LaminManneh has accused the Barrow government of orchestrating adiplomatic blunder by exponentially increasing the levy on Senegal-made cement the day the Senegalese President visited Banjul.
“Unfortunately, the day President Diomaye got here was the day this government chose to slap a very big tax increase on cement being imported from Senegal. You couldn’t have worse timing than that,” the top UDP official said in a recent interview with Coffee Time With Peter Gomez.
According to Dr. Manneh, the levy on cement for a 30-ton truckwas D30,000 before Diomaye’s visit.
“The day President Diomaye got here on Saturday, they slapped a D180,000 tax on the goods coming from Senegal. That’s a 600% increase. What do you say to President Diomaye? When we are receiving you, we are imposing sanctions on your country because this[increase] is sanction,” he added.
The top UDP official hinted that the Barrow administration could’ve capitalized on President Diomaye’s recent Banjul visit to open a clean slate for cooperation after tense relations with PASTEF.
“I think that [Diomaye’s visit] was a very good move by President Diomaye. Given the special ties between The Gambia and Senegal, it was important for him to come to The Gambia. It was important, particularly in the sense that presidents MackySall and Barrow had a very good relationship,” opined Dr. Manneh. He went on: “Unfortunately, there was a lot of bad blood that was developing between the Barrow government and the PASTEF supporters in The Gambia. That took a very unfortunate turn of events where their events were canceled. So all these things did happen. A lot of things were said by NPP supporters about President Diomaye and Ousman Sonko that they should be locked up.”
According to the shadow foreign minister of the Gambia’s main opposition party, President Diomaye came here as his second port of call when he became President to strengthen the ties between Banjul and Dakar despite all that transpired between PASTEF and the NPP.
“It was extremely important. That shows you that these are very mature politicians in spite of the age and experience. And they want to have a different working relationship with African countries and they want some patriotism and economic nationalism, whatever. This is extremely important,” he acknowledged.
Dr. Manneh contended that the Barrow administration’s decision to “restrict” Senegal-made cement flouted sub-regional and regional agreements, regarding the unfettered movement of people, goods, services, and capital.
“One of the ECOWAS treaties prohibits that kind of restriction in the movement of goods, people, capital and services. The African Continental Free Trade Area, which came into effect two years ago, prevents those sorts of things,” he argued.
“And in spite of all of those provisions, you violated all of them and you slammed a 600% increase on cement coming to The Gambia [from Senegal]. It cannot go down well with Senegal. And I’m sure they must have discussed that,” he added