By Omar Bah
Former minister and diplomat, Bala Garba Jahumpa, famously called Action Man, has blasted Works Minister Ebrima Sillah for failing to give credit to the former government for starting the negotiations for the hosting of the OIC Summit. He also dismissed Minster Sillah’s alleged claim that he, Jahumpa, was always playing to the gallery.
In an audio obtained by The Standard, Mr. Jahumpa challenged Minister Sillah to search for the files about the negotiations of the OIC Summit at his office or ask some of the staff who were working there at the time.
“Even the Chinese who were helping us will tell you this negotiation was started by the APRC government. There is no argument about that, and whether one acknowledges it or not, it is also the APRC government that brought GRTS, constructed most of these roads, and created free education for Gambians. That is the truth,” he said.
Mr. Jahumpa said Minister Sillah should stop pleasing the president and tell the truth because Gambians cannot be fooled again.
“When we started the negotiations and the work, he (Sillah) was a UDP supporter at the time. We will not allow him or anybody else to twist the facts surrounding the hosting of the OIC Summit. The truth must be told so that the youth will know. If you don’t want to mention President Yahya Jammeh or the APRC, you should be generous enough to say it was started by the former government. That is the honourable thing to do,” he said.
He added: “I remember when we approached the Chinese for the conference centre and the 5 Star Hotel, they said they could only build the conference centre and when I told Jammeh, he thought they had money and should be able to do both, but I told him they had offered to build the conference centre, so I advised him to pay a visit to Qatar where he was able to convince the Qatari King to fund the Five Star Hotel and construct the Bertil Harding Highway all the way to the airport. These files are at the Ministry of Works and the National Road Authority. This is the truth.”
He advised government employees to always put The Gambia ahead of their individual interests.
“We should stop hating and harbouring grudges against each other,” he said.
