By Ndye Sowe
Dismissed staffs of the Food Safety and Quality Authority (FSQA) were on Tuesday invited for questioning by personnel of Kairaba Police station.
This came after a senior staff of FSQA asked the dismissed staff to summit their office materials to FSQA authority, but the staff refused to do so.
Ndey Ngerr-Baldeh, a Scientific Officer for Laboratory Test at the FSQA alleged that on Tuesday morning, one Bai Dodou Jallow, the current director of Scientific Affairs of FSQA informed the former staff of FSQA to hand-over their materials and not to report to work again.
This happened during a meeting with them, she added.
According to one of the dismissed staff, few minutes after their discussion with Jallow,’ Police officers entered the office and asked them to hand over their materials or else they will be arrested.
She explained that they were brought to the Kairaba Police Station and asked to return the office materials to the FSQA authority.
She added that their lawyer who was present at the station, advised them to hand over the materials and then take the matter to court.
Ngerr-Baldeh: “We will do what our lawyer advised us. We will try and hand over the materials and then take the matter to court because we know that our rights have been violated. We were dismissed in a very wrongful way.’’
Alagie Sowe, a former Food Inspector at the Food Safety and Quality Authority, (FSQA) said they were not arrested by the Police, but invited and asked to hand over the office materials given to them.
“We told them that we were wrongfully dismissed”, he said, adding the assistant commissioner told them they received instructions from the office of the Vice President that the FSQA staff should hand over every material in their possession.
He said the commissioner told them that if they have any issues with our dismissals, “we proceed to court and file case to challenge the management’s decision to sack us”.
Sowe added: “We are going to hand over the materials to the police and they will return them to the office of the Vice President, that’s where they got the instructions from.”
As of now, Sowe said they are going to work with their lawyer to strategize on the appropriate steps to take on this matter.
A deputy Police commissioner at Kairaba Police station was approached on the matter, but he declined to comment on the issue and referred the reporter to the Police spokesperson.
During a visit to FSQA building, Bai Dodou Jallow – director of Scientific Affairs of FSQA was also asked to shed light on the matter and he said: “I will seek permission from the authority on the matter before commenting on it.’’
At the time of going to press, efforts to reach the Police spokesperson ASP Lamin Njie was unsuccessful as his phone-kept on ringing without any answer.
