Within one year this country is witnessing massive environmental violations that are deliberately and consciously perpetrated by the Gambia Government.
Not only has the new Government failed to correct the bad decisions and actions of the former regime in regards to the environment but Barrow Government has gone even further to create its own bad decisions and actions on top of the terrible environmental challenges they have inherited. These decisions and actions are a direct threat to the fundamental rights of Gambians!
Here are a few of the environmental threats that pose a clear and present and future dangers to the lives and livelihoods of Gambians including our flora and fauna.
1. Dumping of liquid waste into the Atlantic Ocean in Gunjur by Golden Lead company
2. Loads of dead fish littering the beach and environs around Gunjur due to indiscriminate, uncontrolled and massive fishing
3. Indiscriminate dumping of all sorts of waste in Kitty and Tanbana and environs without treatment or control
4. Untreated dumping in Kotu with bad odour polluting the environment for months now
5. Sludge dumping in Mandinari and Brikama that is releasing terrible bad odour in those communities and beyond
6. Bakoteh dumpsite continues to release dangerous fumes into communities, clinics and schools unabated
7. Monkey Park is being destroyed to the detriment of present and future generations and endangering rich flora and fauna for the selfish benefit of foreign investors!
These and many more are the violations against the rights of Gambians to clean environment, sustainable development and safe and secure lives today and tomorrow.
These violations by The Gambia Government are in contravention of local environmental laws and regulations and international environmental conventions, agreements and declarations including the Sustainable Development Goals that The Gambia Government has ratified.
Barrow Government must be stopped from not only taking bad decisions but also to be forced to reverse its position about our environment lest they damage the future of this country!
For The Gambia Our Homeland.
Perhaps we should discuss The Gambia Effluent guidelines first before making wild accusations concerning what individual players are doing concerning industrial waste treatment. It may be that our laws are weak and they need to be rewritten or it may mean that companies are violating the rules due to poor enforcement. The important consideration is the safety and welfare of the citizens. How we proceed must be carefully discussed.
“Third World” waste management is a HUGE challenge; as are “townships”, “favellas” and “ghettoes”. There simply is no easy answer. I agree Dr. “Wild” accusations do not help.
The definitive answers to all these questions must reside within government;
Now there lies the problem. This government is so confused and lacking true leadership.
He didn’t say yes ! He didn’t say no ! He didn’t say stop ! He didn’t say go !
Meanwhile the tax payer is paying for Presidential mediocrity and indecisiveness.
Ndugu, Luntango, I’m glad that you laid emphasis on the Third World aspect of the waste management challenge.
We must note that in most instances, there are rules and regulations on the books that indeed offer a good foundation to work off of. However, in most of the third world, public servants and politicians are not only the people’s worst enemies but also pose significant impediments to progress and prosperity. The Third World is just this place where the average mind is muddled up with societal traits and idiosyncrasies that, for various reasons, couldn’t be shed albeit that these have proven time and time again to be killer attributes. Rules and regulations in The Gambia for one only matter when the disaffected party doesn’t belong or is not seen to be a symbiont of the status quo. Thus the intense lobby to feel and stay connected to the corridors of power.
Gambians in authority must recognize that when they choose to walk away from their responsibility of enforcing the statutes on the books, they are doing irreparable harm to the people, the environment and the nation at large.
What does it matter, they’d ask. After all, there’s enough to go round and at the end of the day, all I get is a measly medal and title of recognition. That’s the mindset pure and simple in today’s Gambia!
I’d urge the leadership in The Gambia to look at matters in the context of digging ourselves into a hole. In the North America, Europe and parts of Asia and the Middle East, they can fill gaping holes with mere corrective measures as they do have the resources to bring to bear in the forms of rainy day and sovereign funds. Conversely, in The Gambia and most of the Third World/Developing World, both local and international public servants gleefully plunder our resources leaving gaping holes in the process. The gaping holes then remain as such and for what seems like eternity on account of the pain and suffering inflicted on the poor. Subsequent generations then inherit large and ugly holes that can never be filled even with the advent of Billions of barrels of crude oil as all else gets carted offshore! Gabon offers a prime example.
So where The Gambia cannot legislate for basic environmental mitigation practice, accountability, for posterity and the common good, we will keep seeing futile exercises on top of dog and pony shows that amount to chasing our tails. Meanwhile, everyone else in authority on the ground is feverishly engaged in the plunder, the rat race, the three wives syndrome, the holier than thou syndrome, Marsha’Allah, the CHEBB like there’s no tomorrow but all the while neglecting to build wealth and a decent future for the poor masses that brought them to power in the first place!
And I’d ask, what Mandela when we may be largely looking at a dead end under the current dispensation?
I am lost for words, AP.
Very well said. Selecting the right leadership is our biggest challenge. It seems we have an attraction/affinity to political/public office aspirants who have no idea how to run a country.
Many seek the office for what it can give them or because the opportunity presents itself, thus the reason for the ever widening and deepening hole.
Andrew Pjalo& CO, Jollofnews 2nd May 2018
Most of the contents of the postings do not tally with the need of the Gunjur people, in a wider spectrum the Gambian people. The employment argument should not be prioritized to jeopardize the health of thousands of Gambians. What is our priority? The employment of a handful of Gambians or the long term health conditions of our people?
The Gunjur activists should not rely on this INEPT, INEFFICIENT, CORRUPT Barrow administration for a solution. Those who should come into the game have already swallowed their kickbacks and would never utter a word to salvage our people from these environmental, economic and social hazards. Closing that dangerous plant will not send our people hungry. NEVER! Instead it would maintain and improve their already fragile health and allow them to use the Atlantic Ocean for their own economic gains. It’s only then that the administration can open channels that would allow our youth to use the fishing industry from a genuine Gambian development perspective. That would be a real sustainable development plan. Let’s always remember the lives of the future generations!
Barrow, Amadou Sanneh, Ousainou Darboe and all that clique of CORRUPT and SELFISH people have quickly looked into the welfare of their children and close family buddies by sending them abroad for further studies (their future, of course) thereby denying the children of the poor the same opportunities. They are quickly in shaping the lives of their own children!
Why wait for any solution to the Golden Lead problem when these INEFFICIENT, CORRUPT and very SELFISH administrators are busy seeing how quickly they can fill their pockets, build their mansions/bungalows, send their children to prestigious institutions abroad and entrench their power base by any fraudulent means, just in one year five months? Why wait for them for a “solution” while the lives of thousands of Gambians especially from Gunjur and the Kombo coastal areas are in danger?
I’ll call on the activists to resort to all judicial measures to make sure the Chinese company complies or shuts down!
There is what seems to be an unfinished castle/palace in Kaninlai. Wonder where the money came from?
Supporters of the pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.
Babu Soli
There is nothing new in your rantings but same empty rhetoric, lies and hate. He who couldn’t see any wrongdoings on the part of Yahya Jammeh in his 22 years of misrule is in no position to blame any of corruption, inefficiency or selfishness. Yahya Jammeh embodied all these traits. Let Babu Soli shut his trap if he have nothing good, productive, informative, educative to say.
Babu Soli
There is nothing new in your rantings but same empty rhetoric, lies and hate. He who couldn’t see any wrongdoings on the part of Yahya Jammeh in his 22 years of misrule is in no position to blame any of corruption, inefficiency or selfishness. Yahya Jammeh embodied all these traits. Let Babu Soli shut his trap if he have nothing good, productive, informative, educative to say.
Babu Soli
There is nothing new in your rantings but same empty rhetoric, lies and hate. He who couldn’t see any wrongdoings on the part of Yahya Jammeh in his 22 years of misrule is in no position to blame any of corruption, inefficiency or selfishness. Yahya Jammeh embodied all these traits. Let Babu Soli shut his trap if he have nothing good, productive, informative, educative to say.
When the kettle is black, why not call it black to avoid telling LIES/MISLEADING!
The phenomenon of the pot/kettle does not suffice any more in the present awkward and devastating economic, political and social situations in our country.
Everything is deplorable except the Barrow mansion, the Amadou Sanneh mansion, the Mai Fatty mansion.
Everything is deplorable except their children’s lucrative conditions in the USA.
Everything is deplorable, our farmers are still waiting to receive their money four months after the trade season.
In one year five months, everything is DEPLORABLE. That’s the pot/kettle analogue! The TRUTH!
There’s a lot of problems. No denying that fact, but these are not new problems. Mansions from questionable sources were built during Jawara’s time; they were built during Jammeh’s time and they are now being built.
Why do you only see the mansions today and not yesterday or the children abroad?
I acknowledge, and can see the truth in what you say, but it’s your hypocrisy I can’t ignore.
Sorry Babu, but until you see the same problem in all past administrations fairly, you cannot be anything but an unjust critic of the current regime.