FOROYAA

By Yankuba Jallow

The Minister of Health on Saturday told members of the National Assembly that the Gambia has a very bad system which requires changes.

Dr. Ahmed Lamin Samateh was speaking before lawmakers on Saturday afternoon on the situation of COVID-19 in the country and why the payment of allowances to the frontline workers was not made on time.

He said instead of dealing with the response to COVID-19, strategizing, developing the policies, people were focussed on how to amass money through the promised allowances.

He said there were people who were bent on mismanaging the fund meant to fight COVID-19 as they did with the Ebola fund.

“I think we inherited a bad system. That is the bottom line. The same old people are there. They got used to the same bad system. We talk about Ebola, unfortunately, Ebola funds were wasted in this country and that is what they want to do with this and we say no.”

“That is why some of them are up and against. The Ebola funds were wasted here. What that would have done, today, our health system wouldn’t have been like this. There were equipment which were said to have been procured which never got to this country. Nobody sees them. Allowances were put together – then allowances were paid as impress and I was told they put it in bags and they went and paid selected people and the rest only God and they know where the rest went to. Some people were left as a response team for three months and they never get a dime paid to them. They are still here.”

He said the same people are there and now they don’t have the access, they are sabotaging the system.

“To them, things won’t work. To them, things will fail. This is the frustration I am facing as a health minister.”

He said these are the same people who will go to the media to fabricate lies against the Government.

“We have a bad system where middle-level people who have been spending money in the air building homes – three, four, five-storey buildings in town. They are in the ministry,”

“We have people who go to border points because they have people they stationed there, to be collecting little things from them every weekend.”

He said when these people were removed, they became very angry and they take him as someone who came to destroy their way of life.

“They are up with arms, doing every kind of havoc and undermining us because they have grievances,” he said.

He told lawmakers one of the former cabinet ministers (whose name was not mentioned) called one of their programme managers to give him fuel coupons.

He said when he asked them to provide him with the list of those who are supposed to be given the allowances, “the problem started, especially, when the five hundred million dalasis was mentioned. That was when our problem as a health ministry started.”

He added: “Unfortunately, people started forgetting about COVID 19, all they talk about is money, money, money. That is why I said our work is very difficult.”

He said there is a great number of health workers who are sacrificing their lives for the country, but there are a few bad elements too.

“If you look at the list and the estimate, it consumed almost the entire five hundred million dalasis for allowances,” Dr. Samateh said.

The medical doctor said when his ministry rejected that, they went back and brought another list which was big.

“When we look at the list, they mentioned over three hundred volunteers and nobody knows where all those volunteers come from,” he said.

Minister Samateh said the names of the volunteers were removed and they were asked to bring the list of the core (frontline) people. He said his ministry was able to trace repeated names at different places in the same list.

He told the lawmakers that that list was also rejected adding he went to Kotu at the Central Medical Store where he spent a whole day until 2 am with his people to come up with a list.

“Our intention was to give them something because it was difficult for them. They sometimes go home late, but we needed a list,” he said.

Samateh explained that if he had not done that, there would have been a disaster.

“As we looked at the list, we saw that there were various duplications and that night alone we removed over 300 names,” he said.

He said they were able to remove these names with the help of the team leaders who were called to identify those under them. He said after that process, their names were arranged alphabetically and this was how they were able to trace all the duplicated names.

Dr. Samateh said these were the categories of frontline workers who were to be given allowances.

He said the frontline workers are those who were in the contact tracing team, surveillance team, laboratory units, case management units, workers at accident and emergency wards and the people at the outpatient wards.

“Some people were putting their friends, relatives to be in that frontline (list),” he said.

He said the idea of the list is to pay the frontline workers first and then pay others, maybe less. He said when people knew that those at the emergency unit were going to be given allowance, they began writing their names under them.

“This is the nightmare we are facing,” Samateh said.

By: Kebba AF Touray

Dr. Amadou Lamin Samateh, Gambia’s Health Minister, told Gambian Lawmakers on Saturday that it is projected that without social distancing, the African Continent is expected to have three hundred thousand COVID-19 cases within a year.

The projections by the Policy Analysis Unit of the President’s Office, also indicates that 74-93 percent of the population might be affected.

Samateh also told the legislators that when the pandemic peaks, the continent is expected to have 3000 cases per day and 10,000 active cases in the Gambia.

He said with strict social distancing and assumption, there will be reduction in contact by 50 percent, they would expect a total of 1600 cases from 300,000 in a year and a total of 30 active cases per day at peak and the country would expect 6 to 7 new cases to be registered per day.

He said globally, a total of 24, 338, 658 COVID-19 cases have been reported out of which 297, 119 have been death registered and Africa has registered 54,190 confirmed cases with 1,623 deaths registered, while Senegal our closest neighbor registered a total of 2,189 with a total fatality of 23.

Samateh explicated: “The Gambia as of 15th May 2020 has registered 23 cases with one death. We have been carrying out a lot of contact tracing in this country, as it is the corner-stone of response in the prevention and containment stages”.

He said “As at now the Gambia has conducted 1440 tests and have confirmed 23 positive test results. This means that as at now, we are doing about 700 tests per million people. The case definition has been modified and includes all symptoms of fever, cough, while travel history and history of contact are no longer necessary in case definition of suspected cases”

He said: “There are 13 Isolation centers and at present 20 ventilators ready for use when needed. The equipment that is supposed to be procured includes ventilators, X-ray machines, ultra sound machines, patient monitors, and 33 ambulances, to make our health facilities more robust to deal with COVID-19 and thereafter. The procurement process by both the World Bank and the Gambia Government will soon be completed and the equipment will soon be in the country”.

He disclosed: “At the beginning of the pandemic in the Gambia, the projections on the disease were that we will have a total of 181 thousand infections at the peak and 3300 per day. But with social distancing we were expecting 53000 infections at the peak and 1000 infections per day”.

He averred that the initial contact tracing was geared towards following people from hotspot countries before the commencement of quarantine and the people concerned were asked to stay isolated at home and were routinely followed by the health personnel for the development of COVID-19 Symptoms.

He said those who developed symptoms were tested and of those people 350 were followed within 14 days and the contact tracing is concentrated on following contacts of the confirmed cases and the contacts of the contacts, and once the contacts of the high risk is confirmed, they are quarantined and low risk cases are followed at home.

He said: “The target for contact tracing is 719 and 789 have so far been traced successfully. Of the low risk, a total of 105 were being followed and we went beyond to follow 109 cases. Quarantine started in early March 2020,”

He averred: “initially quarantine started with people coming into the country from hotspot zones, with challenges as many people were not cooperating, despite Quarantine is one of our interventions that has yielded dividend in the Gambia, as most of our positive cases were all confirmed whilst undergoing quarantine”.

He said currently, the Gambia has 94 people in quarantine and 375 completed quarantine, while expressing joy with the visit of the Health and Special Committees of the Legislature to the quarantine sites.

He noted at present, they have spent D20 million on Quarantine Facilities and underscored that their containment efforts are going well, as they almost know the epidemiological link of almost all the cases and all known contacts have been traced and tested.

He said testing is the corner stone of the COVID-19 response and the recommended level of testing level is now at least 2 percent of the population and those countries that have done testing have tested 40-60,000 per million people.

By: Kebba AF Touray

Hon. Alhagie Mbow, National Assembly Member for Upper Saloum and Chairperson of the Special Committee on the Implementation of State of Public Emergency, said that experts at the country’s Health Ministry told them that one hundred and eighty-one thousand people could be infected with COVID-19, if the country fails to adhere strictly to the rules of social distancing.

Mbow said this on Friday while laying the committee’s report on its recent visit to 38 places, including ferry terminals, fish landing sites, markets, border posts and market.

He said the committee report is premised on the objective of holding the executive to account, as it delivers on its commitment to the people during the forty-five day period of the State of Public Emergency, approved by the Lawmakers on the 2nd April 2020.

He said the report seeks to inform lawmakers on the implementation of regulations and their effects on the lives and livelihoods of the people and institutions in the country, as well as to appraise the Legislature on the extent to which the committee has delivered on its mandate.

The committees observed among other things that social distancing was not observed in some public places, hand washing facilities were placed at places visited; vendors along the road side caused congestion, checking of visitor’s temperature were not done.

He said the committee recommended that a regulation criminalizing transport the conduct of drivers or compound owners, who assist any unauthorized traveller to enter the county or harbors any visitor from abroad, as well as a regulation that makes it an offence for anybody who enters the country and refuses to be quarantined or refused to report to health authorities.

On security, he added that the committee recommends for the full enforcement of border closure with the deployment of armed and security forces, Health and Interior Ministries to collaborate and ensure that quarantine and isolation centers are off-bound to visitors, provision of adequate equipment to the Interior Ministry with more vehicles and communication to enforce regulation and to deploy navy to the sea and curb illegal entry into the country.

The committee also recommends that the Finance Ministry to revise the 2020 budget to give more support to the Health Ministry to fight against Coronavirus, review the Public Finance Act 2014 and make correction on laws that contravene the constitution and engage state owned enterprises, to ensure continuity in provision of essential services.

He said: “The committee resolved that the state of public emergency be extended to 21 days, subject to strict adherence to the implementation of all state of public emergency regulations, that the Assembly to recognize the relentless services of the health workers in the country, support of the MRC as well as the support of the World Health Organization”.

Lawmakers during their interventions hailed the committee for the good work and called for the enforcement and implementation of the precautionary measures. They also tasked the authorities to ensure that the border closure is enforced and fully implemented, noting that despite the closure, people are still entering the country. They also reiterated the need for effective mass sensitization, to widen the understanding of the communities to contain the disease and address the denial syndrome.

The lawmakers are currently debating on the report and once adopted will usher the Gambia in another state of public emergency.