By Fatou Sillah
Nenneh Cheyassin Kebe, the vice-presidential candidate of the People’s Progressive Party, sharply criticized President Adama Barrow’s administration in an interview on Thursday, arguing that nearly a decade in power has yielded little measurable progress and provides no basis for another term.
Speaking to Kerr Fatou, Ms. Kebe said the government had failed to deliver meaningful development, contending that voters should weigh the country’s future against what she described as an absence of tangible achievements.
“If you care about your future and your children’s future, President Barrow is not it,” she said. “He has not done anything in nine years that he can run on in the next five years.”
She pointed in particular to challenges in the education sector, citing inadequate school conditions and declining academic performance. During visits to schools, she said, she encountered facilities lacking basic necessities.
“When I visit some of the schools, I’m shocked they don’t have water,” she said. “Last year, the worst GCE grades were from Gambia. It is about to be 90 to 95 degrees out here; the classrooms don’t have fans.”
Ms. Kebe also questioned government spending priorities, highlighting what she described as significant expenditures on the presidency at the expense of essential public services.
“When you check the president’s budget, last year alone, he spent a billion dalasis on the president’s office,” she said. “Why should Gambians accept that?”
Turning to infrastructure, she cited recurring flooding and poor road conditions as evidence of weak planning and a lack of sustainable solutions. She also raised concerns about the country’s reliance on loans to finance development projects.
“And those roads are loans our great-grandchildren will be paying back,” she said. “We are about D130 billion in debt; eventually, all our resources will go to paying these debts.”
Questioning the government’s borrowing strategy, she added, “If you can’t pay the debt you already have, why are you still taking loans?”
Ms. Kebe urged citizens to demand greater accountability and called for a change in governance, saying the current trajectory was unsustainable.
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