By Bakary Touray Jr.
The restriction on essential commodities is to protect the Gambians at minimum, from opportunists who would hike the prices of basic commodities that the citizenry would need to survive, stated the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Justice, Lawyer Abubacarr Marie Tambadou, popularly called Ba Tambadou.
The Gambia Government’s chief legal adviser made the explanations on Friday, 3 April 2020 during the debate on the government’s request for the extension of The Gambia’s State of Public Emergency to 90 days, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country. “It would be noted that the State of Public Emergency had now been put at 45 days instead of the 90 days requested.”
Indicating that 99.9 percent of the list of essential commodities are food stuff, he explained that the “reason is because we want to protect that food. We have identified them essential food commodities, so that they will be protected from hoarding, re-export and price hikes. All of that is for the benefit of the people of this countryโ.
He further said the restrictions of public transport would be a challenge that would hit hard the entire sector in the economic phases.
โThese regulations are the first of many that are going to come before the legislators and they were swiftly done to control the spread of the virus for now.They will be amended and revised, but other regulations will also come to regulate every other aspect of life in this country,โ the chief legal Adviser of government remarked before the Nationl Assembly in Banjul.
โBut for now, all we ask for is to extend this state of emergency for 90 days. We have heard you for the 45 days. We will leave with that, but what we want is to buy time to stop the spread of this virus. If 45 day is going to be enough for us we will take it. If it doesnโt when we get there, we will cross the bridge,โ he argued.
Minister Tambedou clarified that they were not proposing a lockdown, adding because they do understand the competing interest between the need to prevent this pandemic from taking hold in this country and allowing the people to live with minimal disruptions to their lives.
The NAMs heard: โThat is why we are calling for this State of Emergency to be extended. It will allow the government to put the restriction in form of regulations, which in our views, are the dearest minimum that the government can provide to protect the people from getting the pandemicโ.
The Justice Ministry head submitted that the restrictions are the minimum protections, but they have safeguards and three of the four regulations that were presented before the lawmakers for affirmation, are to restrict movements to prevent infection.
