By Omar Bah
The agriculture minister has clarified his office’s position on the controversy surrounding the reappointment of Ebrima Jawara as director-general at the Department of Agriculture.
Responding to a question on the matter during his office’s first press conference, Tuesday, Omar Jallow said he was not given a heads up by the Personnel Management Office on the reinstatement of former president Jawara’s son to the ministry.
“I was sitting in my office when my permanent secretary emerged with this guy [Ebrima Jawara] and informed me that he had got a letter that he is being reinstated to Agriculture. Who am I, to say no?” he said.
He continued: “When there was so much talk about him, I told my PS to talk to PMO to regulate things, because I would not allow instability in my ministry. Because what we need now in this new dispensation is stability and not instability,” he said.
Minister Jallow, who served as agriculture minister while Ebrima’s father was president, said he did inform the civil servants who are agitating against his reinstatement that many things happened in the last republic and that “if we want to say who has ever worked under Yahya Jammeh should be marginalised, we would not go anywhere.”
“I have said it over and over that I am no longer thinking of the past; what they have done to me, they have not done to any politician in The Gambia. But I [knew I was sacrificing] for the country and now that we have got our freedom, my interest is how to develop the country,” he posited.
Meanwhile, The Standard has been reliably informed that Ebrima Jawara is still reporting to work as director-general at the Department of Agriculture.
Jawara was appointed on 4 September replacing Falalo Touray, whose contract for the position ended on 2 September 2017.
