By: Momodou Justice Darboe
The Minister of Works and Transport, Ebrima Sillah, could not say how much cash has so far been injected into each OIC road following claims by UDP’s Lamin Manneh that the Gambia government did not invest even US$400,000 to build each road.
The Gambia OIC Secretariat under its former CEO Mr. LaminSanneh has succeeded in raising US$50M for The Gambia to build a 50KM-OIC road network to standard.
According to Mr. Manneh, a standard highway is usually about a million dollars per kilometer.
“That’s the average but these roads are not even highways but they provided US$50M for those roads and those roads normally, none of them has cost this government even US$400,000 by looking at what is on the ground. Where did the balance go? If you put a million dollars into those roads, you’re supposed to have standard roads and the guarantee. Where has the 50 million dollars gone to finance?” argued Manneh in a sizzling debate with Mr. Sillah on Coffee Time With Peter Gomez on Tuesday.
The works minister did not have ready answers to the top UDP official’s query about the whereabouts of the balance of the US$50M but said the dynamics had changed since the signing of the contracts for the OIC roads. Sillah argued that the costs ofpetrol, haulage of resources such as laterite and basalt, consultancy fees, culverts, and streetlights have increased somewhere down the line.
