By Omar Bah
President Adama Barrow has claimed that his political god-father and UDP’s candidate, Ousainu Darboe, will never be president.
Addressing a rally in Basse where a big crowd gathered to cheer him as he continues his campaign tour across the country, Barrow chided: “Until recently, I thought my father was 70 years old but when I went to the Central River Region recently, I was told he is over 80 years old and this is why I now know that he will never be president in this country. This is why also, since after the nomination, none of the aspirants joined the UDP except Bakary Bunja Dabo. Both of them are old in Gambian politics and there is nothing they can have again because they are both hot water which cannot cool each other. They are coming. I want you to be careful of these two people.”
Development projects
From castigating his opponents, President Barrow also informed his supporters of his government’s plans to introduce a social health insurance scheme, which he has the potential to address Gambia’s health challenges.
“The scheme is designed to ensure all individuals have access to effective public health and personal health care, ensure choice of cost-effective intervention, and provide the population with the highest quality of health services,” Barrow said.
He said the health insurance will be funded through deduction of salaries of government workers and government subsidies.
“It will ensure that every Gambian will have a health insurance that will guarantee you free healthcare service and even if you go to the hospital and there is no medicine, they will give you a document to go to the pharmacy and get free medication,” he said.
He said his government is also constructing 20 health facilities and renovating 26 others across the country and they will provide qualified doctors from Cuba for all these hospitals.
Rice project
The president said his government has also secured an $80million rice project which has the capacity of ending the importation of rice.
“It will create jobs for our young people so that they will stop going to the back-way. We have already started working on the rice fields and very soon the project will start,” he added.
Roads
Barrow also announced his government’s plans to construct 1200km more roads which include all the feeder roads in Basse.
Electricity
Barrow said effective 24th December, Basse’s electricity supply will be connected through Senegal to ensure the country’s second capital has 24 hours electricity.
“And before the end of December, we will connect the substations in Brikama and Jarra Soma to a dam in Guinea Conakry and those communities will start having uninterrupted electricity,” he said.
President Barrow said he has done enough for Basse and the country at large to deserve a second term in office.
“You cannot compare URR now and before I became president. It is completely different. It is like night and day. Basse once had a vice president, ministers of works, health, foreign affairs, sports and all kinds of ministers but in those 30 years, Basse was forgotten. But that has changed since I came to office,” he disclosed.
The Gambian leader also extended condolence to the families of those who lost their lives coming for his nomination from the country’s second capital.
The minister of local government, Musa Drammeh urged the people of Basse “not to accommodate the opposition”.
“Before Barrow became president, we all know what Basse looked like in the areas of infrastructure, water and other social needs. Travelling was a nightmare in this country but today all these challenges are now history. If you reelect this government with all the plans they have in terms of infrastructure and health, your sons and daughters living in the Kombos will come back because all the amenities they have there will be available to them here,” Minister Drammeh.
Minister Drammeh rubbished as “untrue” allegations that the Barrow administration is corrupt, saying if the government was corrupt, they would not have been able to accomplish all the developments they manage since 2017.
