Senegambia Bridge turns cross border trader from breadwinner to dependent

The cross-border trader made these remarks on Tuesday at the International Conference Centre in Bijilo during the launching of the Migration Multi-partner Trust Fund Joint Programme by International Organisation for Migration and partners.

"The Senegambia Bridge is one of the most important milestone in the history of business and transportation in this country. It is an unprecedented achievement; I salute the enterprising foresight of all stakeholders that turned this dream into a reality," she narrated.

"Notwithstanding, the symbolic importance of the Senegambia Bridge both in terms of mobility and from an economic perspective cannot be over emphasised," she added.

"It also triggered certain unavoidable financial challenges on the part of the vendors that carved out their livelihood from different economic activities, selling different kind of things both day and night, when the ferry service operated."

The victim further noted that with the presence of the bridge, they are all compelled to halt all commercial activities, which crushed their respective source of income.

"So, the Senegambia Bridge virtually took us out of work and changed our social status from bread winners to dependents."

"So far we have not been provided with any form of funding or subsidised in anyway, and we have also not been allocated any shops or pieces of land for us to build our own shops"

"On behalf of all vendors I would like to respectfully draw the attention of the local and central government authorities to our plight and we ask them to come to our aid by taking the necessary steps to help restore our financial status, so that we can become financially useful to ourselves again," she pleaded.

Fanta Faal concluded by expressing optimism that the relevant authorities would be propelled into action without further delay, with the sole objective of providing viable and sustainable solutions to their unfortunate predicament, as they are at brink of a complete economic meltdown.