By Ebrima Papa Colley (Gambiano)
Gambia’s First Lady Fatou-Bah Barrow allegedly received funds from a medical doctor’s effort in California for her Fatou-Bah Barrow Foundation, but then refused to pay taxes on the funds, leaving donors in a let-down situation of a bad example. ForGambia News was informed that there is a medical doctor in California, USA, with a clean heart to help the poor, especially in the Third World. The said doctor, in philanthropic efforts works with popular U.S figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry’s foundations to help those in need.
Sometime ago, Gambia’s First Lady’s Fatou-Bah Barrow’s Foundation reached out to the California doctor and philanthropist for help. She received a huge chunk in millions, but evaded taxes and flew back to Gambia with the loot. United States authorities don’t joke about tax evasion and the doctor could be accused of money laundering through working with foreign individuals just to siphon money from the States.
Gambia Women’s Lives Matter’s Mballing Cham has been at the forefront to fight maternal deaths or labor-related complications. Her daughter and like-minded folks are pooling efforts to erect a maternity hospital in The Gambia. When they reached out to the California doctor, they were told the Gambian First Lady had set a very bad example by evading taxes as soon as she received funds earlier from the doctor’s efforts.
Such bad precedent by the First Lady and the rotten apple in her has not only burnt bridges, but also made it extremely difficult to receive funding from, at least the philanthropic California doctor and his group. We spoke to Mballing Cham Monday morning, September 27th 2021 and she didn’t spare Gambia’s Health Secretary, Dr. Samateh or Gambia’s First Lady now making health funding for the poor more difficult.
Meet-the-People’s Tour is supposed to address the most important issues affecting “the people.” Key in those issues should be healthcare. Key in that healthcare is the lack of the most basic supplies, such as gloves, blood and blood-related supplies such as medical fridges, vitamin K for blood clotting, etc., in our hospitals.
But Gambia’s Minister of Health, Dr. Samateh used the so-called “Meet-the-People’s Tour” by the heartless government of Adama Barrow to launch an attack against a charity organization such as ‘Gambian Women’s Lives Matter’—a body that has been financially sponsoring women to survive labor complications in the Gambia.
Dr. Samateh told a useless political rally held in Brikama Sunday by his government that Mballing Cham’s organization called Gambian Women’s Lives Matter is a political tool bent on spreading lies in the country. Cham’s group and this medium have been publishing continuously about maternal sentinel deaths in Gambia’s poorly equipped hospitals while gov’t spends millions on “Meet-the-People’s Tour,’ “Meet-the-Farmers’ Tour,” luxury cars, official per diems, political campaign vehicles, or personal houses and side-kick gains in Senegal.
Dr. Samateh stated that Gambian Women’s Lives Matter should have consulted his ministry about matters which he believes the organization isn’t professionally-versed in. But the organization seeks funds, helps poor and needy families especially after the demise of mothers who leave vulnerable babies behind, and lastly lament the corollaries of where we went wrong.
Cham’s organization doesn’t need any expertise to do what it has been doing. Dr. Samateh added that President Barrow knows more about the suffering of those dying from labor complications than Cham’s volunteer organization. “That’s why he [President Barrow] is doing all this for you.” Doing what, and for who? What exactly is Barrow doing to stop historical records of maternal deaths in our hospitals that even ration gloves?
Gambian Women’s Lives Matter brought victims’ families to speak to the nation. One of them [Sidibeh], a husband now nursing an orphan after the death of his wife and the baby’s mother at Brikama Hospital September 13th 2021 clearly stated that while his late wife [Jawo] was in surgery, electricity went off at the hospital and the guy responsible for turning on the stand-by generator was nowhere to be seen.
It was Sidibeh’s own friend who connected his personal car battery to the generator for doctors to continue the surgery his wife couldn’t come out of. While the same surgery was on, Sidibeh was asked by the care team to go buy vitamin K and “Ringers 9.” We assume this to be Lactated Ringers, a simple supply the government should have made easily available at our hospitals.
But in Brikama Sunday, Barrow’s health minister Dr. Samateh didn’t address any of these preventable deaths his gov’t could easily be sued for if there is any shred of justice in The Gambia. Instead, he attacked Cham’s charity organization that is only complementing his own government’s tardy efforts. He threw aspersions at the group’s funding, explicitly inviting reactions from not only Cham, but ordinary Gambians.
Speaking of funding, it wasn’t Cham and her group that came to the U.S, acquired funds, broke the law, and ran off with millions while leaving donors in a disappointed situation. Dr. Samateh also attacked how individuals in Cham’s group posed in a photo-op with some opposition politicians. Samateh was attacking a photo of Mballing Cham where she posed with Ousainou Darboe.
In the U.S where Samateh’s Boss Adama Barrow’s wife fled with millions in tax evasion, there was an opposition senator called John McCain who would visit U.S troops and pose with them in widely circulated photographs. But not only McCain was doing that. Then tell the First Lady to return the American money, Mr. Minister! And let her apologize and repair the damage she has caused.