“Your Excellency, we want you to help us with a graveyard as the Bundung-Ka Kunda graveyard is full to its capacity. In fact, even to bury a corpse is a problem. This is a problem that we are encountering. We want to have a new place where we can bury our deceased,” Ramatoulie Bah said at the Bundung meeting on Tuesday.
“However, we also want to thank you for the numerous developments that are currently on-going within the community, especially the road that you have constructed at Sukuta which has been a nightmare for the community of the area. But we also want you to help us expand the Bundung-Ka Kunda market so that it can be a standard market where women can have enough space to sell,” she said, while also urging the president to help and develop their football field.
Representing the alkalo of Bundung, Saikou Conateh, thanked the president for embarking on the tour, claiming that it has given them the opportunity to highlight their concerns so that he (president) could address them. “Mr. President, we are appealing to you and your government to help us with water. I can tell you that from Bundung Faro Kono to Bundung Borehole, there is a problem with water.”
“We also want your government through the Ministry of Interior to help the Bundung Police Station with mobility. Even if people come to the police station to lodge a complaint, sometimes the police find it difficult to effect arrest due to the lack of vehicles. Criminals are now armed and one police officer can’t arrest suspected criminals. A vehicle for the Bundung Police Station is among the needs of the community because even today, I witnessed the police arresting suspected thieves,” he posited.
Justifying the President’s plan for tax increment in the country, Mustapha Touray, NPP Chairman in the area, said: “All Gambians should support the president in his desire to increase taxes in the country. There can’t be any meaningful development in the country if we don’t have the much needed resources. We can’t have good roads, hospitals and clean drinking water among others if the government doesn’t have the resources. As a country, we can’t entirely depend on donors,” he postulated. “It is only in The Gambia where you can go to a hospital and see a doctor, and do other services including medications for free.”
The National Assembly Member of the area, Hon, Sulayman Jammeh, said: “We want the government to help us with our own transmitter at the Bundung Child and Maternal Hospital with a view to boost its electricity capacity as the hospital is serving a lot of communities.”
Higher Education Minister Professor Pierre Gomez said President Barrow has a transformational version in developing the country more especially the country’s higher education, saying: “Since the country’s nationhood, the higher education sector has been left behind especially on the TVET education. This, he said, has now become the things of the past in this present government.”
"Since independence to date, we have never produced our own home growth engineers. However, Barrow is changing the trajectory and very soon we will have our own home grown engineers in civil engineering and mechanical engineering among others. No country can develop if they don’t develop its human capacity. The government is also building regional TVET centres across the country,” he added.
President Barrow for his part assured the people of Bundung and the surrounding area that the Latrikunda road will be constructed as it is part of the OIC Project. “The contractor will soon start to work on the drainage system. I can assure you that it is going to be a first class road upon completion and will also have street lights.”
Responding to the issue raised on water shortage in Bundung, Barrow said: “Addressing water shortage in Bundung is a priority for me. Our team was in Bundung recently and they dug more than 200 metres in the area but the water is still not good. However, we are currently digging a new borehole in Nema and after completion it will be connecting Bundung. All your concerns are noted and the government is working in addressing them,” he emphasised.
