Gambia’s President Adama Barrow has bypassed the country’s “recalcitrant” National Assembly to extend the state of emergency by another 21 days with effect from May 19 in the ongoing fight against the coronavirus.
MPs last weekend narrowly voted 25 to 23 against an extension of the state of emergency in a bid to break the chain of infection of the coronavirus.
Since March, The Gambia has recorded 24 cases of the virus and one death.
In an address to the nation shortly after Ramadan iftar on Tuesday, President Barrow said he was exercising powers vested in him by the constitution to prolong the emergency period given the serious threat posed to Gambians by the virus.
He said the situation surrounding the Covid-19 crisis in The Gambia is already being compounded by the rate of infection in neighbouring Senegal where at least 24 people have perished in coronavirus-related deaths.
“This is the time that we must all come together as a nation, and put the interest of the country first and high above politics. This is about all of us as a people bound by a common destiny. It is a period to show our political maturity as a democratic society capable of putting all narrow interests aside for the national interest,” President Barrow told Gambians.
MPs across the political divide on Monday rejected the motion to extend the state of emergency, some of them voicing concern about job retrenchments, and revenue losses for businesses aside from the disruption of social and religious activities including congregational worship especially for Muslims.
Other deputies questioned the rationale behind the previous 21-day emergency period when restrictive measures as announced by Barrow’s government were not strictly enforced as in other countries.
However, it is the opinion of the Gambian leader that the National Assembly should be responsible enough to back his government’s bid to tackle the national health crisis and regretted that MPs did not act on its powers to this end and left him with no option but to invoke his own authority provided by the constitution to extend the state of emergency which ended on Monday.
“My government and I owe it to the people of this country to protect them from this grave danger. It is my duty to act, and it amounts to a deadly abdication of responsibility if I fail to take the right action in the face of an obvious threat to the lives of our people” he contended.
Gambians on Wednesday woke up to a renewal of the state of emergency which some of them have criticized for ostensibly depriving poor people of their daily livelihoods.
The challenges inherent in the slow distribution of the relief food aid to vulnerable families across the country remain unresolved, many people expressing reservations about the scheme.
Whistleblowers, among them the country’s Health minister Dr Ahmadou Lamin Samateh, have found their voices against supposed corruption in relation to funds raised to deal with the pandemic.
WN/as/APA