By Yankuba Jallow
Halifa Sallah, the Secretary General and presidential candidate for PDOIS said the poverty of the people in The Gambia will become history if his party is elected to Government in 2021.
“Yes we can eradicate the poverty of the people. We have all it takes – we have the resources,” he said.
He said the current debt burden on the Gambia is about 77.4 billion dalasi where every Gambian, including a child born today, has a debt burden of D28,000. He said the country spends about 4 billion dalasi on the importation of rice, adding a PDOIS will do import substitution.
He said PDOIS stands to eradicate poverty so that people will live in dignity and prosperity.
He said his party intends to establish a cooperative banking system where sovereign national wealth will be injected to help build the productive sector.
He said the party will launch its Transformative Agenda (TA 2021) on the 25th May 2025. He said TA 2021 is the party’s manifesto that would be used to tell Gambians how they intend to change the system. He said the party contributed in bringing about regime change in December 2016 and now their aim is to bring about system change.
He said the party chose May 25 because of it’s a very significant day in Africa.
“PDOIS aims for the unification of Africa,” he said.
He took time to discuss the significance of 24th April every year. He said on the 24th April 1970, the Gambia became a Republic and the people became sovereign.
“It is our national day. A PDOIS Government will commemorate it. The Gambia became a sovereign republic on this day. It gave birth to a sovereign Gambia,” Sallah said.
He said the Central Committee has reviewed the Congress resolutions and have tasked the bureau to implement them.
He has also provided clarity on the issue surrounding Kemeseng Sanneh and Aminata Correa, who were elected at Congress as members of the party’s central committee.
Sanneh was elected as the Secretary to the Youth Bureau by the Congress while Correa was voted as deputy secretary general.
Sallah said the Central Committee held their maiden meeting on the 24th April 2021 and reviewed the report received from Dr Adama Bah, the chairperson of the party’s recently held congress. Bah indicated that he wrote to both Sanneh and Correa, who both confirmed they were not delegates during the Congress. Sanneh in the letter dated 11th March, indicated he was part of the party’s media team; that he was not a delegate whereas Correa indicated in her letter dated the 10th March that she was just an invitee to the Congress.
Sallah continued saying the Central Committee dealt with the issue of the two vacant positions. He said the Constitution empowers the Central Committee under Article 22 to appoint persons to hold a position provided the previous holder dies or resigns or in case of infirmity. However, in the case of Sanneh and Correa, he said the position will remain vacant until the next congress.
