By: Muhammed Lamin Drammeh
Alhagie Mamadi Kurang, an economist-cum-politician, has predicted a rough and hard economic difficulty for the Gambia under the Barrow administration in the next four years amid the rising economic challenges many Gambians are faced with.
Kurang, a stalwart member of the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), explained this to The Fatu Network in an exclusive interview.
“The four years that is left, he (Barrow) cannot survive it with political promises. The reality is going to hit on the people much more because some major decisions that his government needs to take, the government is still dodging them with political statements,” Kurang pointed out.
According to Kurang, President Barrow’s past years as the head of the government were full of unfulfilled promises and failed projects with loans that have started reflecting in the living standards of Gambians.
“He is borrowing more money than Jawara and Jammeh combined. The loan he’s accumulating on us and future generations, he has no project to show for it. So much money invested in OIC and donors, and we have not seen him take any actions after he was disappointed by the work after his visit, so inefficiency is within his government and everywhere,” he stressed.
The outspoken PDOIS member emphasised to TFN that the government under Barrow has little or no interest in ameliorating the economic hardship that many people are going through recently. Kurang only partly blamed the Russia-Ukraine War but put a chunk of the blame on bad domestic policies by the government of the Gambia.
The former presidential aspirant noted that the huge number of loans and bad projects as well as the depreciation of the Gambian Dalasi is affecting the ordinary Gambians.
“The inefficiency of his government is reflected in the standard of our living because the markets and the dalasi are depreciating, and the market is in trouble and these four years under Barrow, he cannot survive it. He is organizing rallies at the state house thinking if politics is booming, the economy will, which is not true. The next four years will be a very rough economic journey for Gambians,”
Kurang explained.
