By Sainey Darboe:
The minister of Tourism, Hamat Bah, has disclosed that planned protests in December will accomplish nothing but only “making Barrow suffer”.
Hon Hamat N Bah, Minister of Tourism
The Gambia is bracing for massive protests in December aimed at forcing president Barrow to step down in line with a three-year coalition agreement.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Kerr Fatou, Hamat Bah conceded:
“It’s true we had a three-year transition program and at the end of the three years the president would resign. At the time we had this agreement we thought we would be able to do all the reforms we needed to do within the three year transition period. What we found...up to this point the constitutional review commission have not presented their report to government. We have to look at it and present it for referendum. We are talking about 2020 for that to happen. As we speak now the TRRC have not even gone half way.
The security sector reform and amending the criminal code have not been done. If we conduct elections now on what constitution are we basing it on. We have to understand the most important thing is to build strong state institutions no leader can manipulate in the future. Our constitution is a carbon copy of the Ghanaian constitution and it was watered down to what it is today”.
He added:
“We are concerned. We don’t want anything that is going to affect the peace and stability of this country. We are not expecting good rains. Gambia depends on the service industry from banking, information technology, tourism and other services. What we depend on as an economy we cannot afford to jeopardize that.
There is no way violence can come into Gambia and be contained in The Gambia due to our geographical location. That’s not possible. Nobody can demonstrate and think they can remove Barrow. What you can do is to destroy the economy and you suffer, I suffer, Barrow suffers and everybody suffers. Why should you hate the man who has a five year mandate and want him to step down after three years”.