Team Gambia Grand Coalition Tour Highlights Poverty, Injustice
By Binta Jaiteh
The opposition Team Gambia Grand Coalition says its recent outreach tour has highlighted concerns over poverty, injustice and other challenges facing Gambians.
Speaking on Monday at a press conference in Tamala, coalition spokesperson Sedia Jatta said the tour provided an opportunity to engage citizens, understand their concerns and discuss ways to address the country’s longstanding development challenges.
“We want to give a new start to The Gambia in an open-minded way and a new commitment to make a difference after 61 years of endeavour to liberate this country. We want to free this country from injustice and poverty,” Jatta said.
He called for collective responsibility in addressing the country’s challenges, arguing that successive governments had failed to eliminate poverty and injustice despite years of national development efforts.
“All the governments that have been in place for the last 61 years have supposedly committed themselves to freeing this country from poverty, freeing this country from ignorance, freeing this country from injustice. But what we have seen is that instead of that freedom, poverty has increased and is always on the increase,” he said.
Halifa Sallah, coordinator of Team Gambia Coalition, said the coalition intended to develop innovative approaches to addressing the country’s challenges and returning governance to the people.
He said the coalition was established to provide a platform for collective action and had spent several months setting up committees to examine the challenges facing Gambian society and propose solutions.
“For months now, we have assigned people to constitute committees that would look at all the challenges of our society and find ways of addressing them,” Sallah said.
He added that the coalition aimed to tackle poverty and what he described as powerlessness through cooperation, mutual trust and a shared national vision.
Sallah stressed the importance of unity and social cohesion, saying that effective governance required people to work together towards common objectives.
“We are convinced that The Gambia needs true children to stand for the country. We can only govern by coming together and then build the type of social cohesion that will enable us to build the country,” he said.
He said the coalition’s engagement with communities had helped its members gain a better understanding of citizens’ concerns, which would inform its approach to governance.
Sallah also called on Gambians to place their trust in political leaders through the ballot box, stressing that citizens had a role to play in determining the country’s future.
The press conference was the coalition’s second, during which its leaders outlined their objectives and commitment to addressing the country’s social and economic challenges.