Dear Editor,
The Kotu Bridge is not just a physical structure. It is a lifeline. It connects entire communities, sustains hundreds of workers, and supports the very artery through which our tourism industry flows. For many Gambian families, it is the quiet but critical infrastructure that enables them to earn a living, access services, and keep the wheels of our economy turning.
Yet for months now, this essential bridge has been left to rot literally. Today it lies abandoned and unusable, the direct result of neglect and poor planning. Instead of taking proactive measures to maintain and preserve this asset, the Ministry of Works, the Ministry of Tourism and the Gambia Tourism Board chose indifference. They simply watched it deteriorate to the point of collapse.
And now the Ministry of Works has issued a press release claiming that construction will begin “soon” and that the new bridge will be completed “within a year”. A year! What does “soon” even mean in the vocabulary of a government that waited months while a vital piece of national infrastructure collapsed in slow motion? This is not a plan. This is a shrug. It is a signal of the same lack of urgency and seriousness that got us here in the first place.
I visited the bridge in September. Today, two months later the site remains unchanged, abandoned, a silent monument to government irresponsibility. What has changed is only the level of inconvenience and suffering it imposes.
Just two days ago, journalist Dawda Baldeh of the Fatu Network produced an excellent report showing how the disrepair of this bridge has disrupted tourism, frustrated visitors, and harmed Gambian workers whose jobs depend on smooth access across that crossing. The tourists themselves, confused and disappointed, spoke candidly. Workers lamented lost time, increased costs, and daily hardship.
Yet while the bridge decays and livelihoods are disrupted, senior officials in the Ministry of Tourism and at GTBoard continue jetting around the world attending tourism fairs, conferences, and photo-ops. They are busy selling The Gambia abroad while neglecting the very backbone of tourism at home. What kind of tourism brand are we promoting when our infrastructure is allowed to collapse? How do you market a country while failing to maintain the basic facilities that make tourism possible?
But let us be honest: this is not an isolated incident. It is part of a longstanding, deeply entrenched pattern of governance failure. Across the country one finds schools that are unmaintained until they become hazards, health facilities left without basic supplies, roads allowed to erode until they become impassable, and utilities breaking down without urgency or accountability. Government neglect is not an accident rather it is a culture.
The collapse of the Kotu Bridge is therefore not merely a technical failure; it is a moral and administrative failure. It represents the cost of unserious leadership, weak planning, and misplaced priorities. It reflects a government that responds only after things have broken down completely. This approach is expensive, disruptive, and dangerous, and it betrays the very people government exists to serve.
The citizens of this country deserve better. We deserve a government that plans. A government that maintains public infrastructure before it becomes a crisis. A government that values accountability more than overseas trips and action more than statements crafted to deflect criticism.
The Kotu Bridge should be a wake-up call. It should force our leaders to confront the consequences of their own negligence. And it should remind us, the citizens that unless we demand better and hold every public official accountable, this cycle of decay will continue bridge by bridge, road by road, sector by sector.
Until then, the broken Kotu Bridge stands as a fitting symbol of our broken governance.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
