Pollution clouds Gambia’s efforts to woo China

GUNJUR, Gambia: The Gambia is courting Beijing’s attention after re- establishing diplomatic relations last year, but villagers and activists say Chinese investment is a double- edged sword as they fight a firm accused of dumping waste.

Chinese firms in Africa are frequently accused of polluting the environment to produce materials ready to export back home, in incidents recorded by experts across the mines of Guinea, oil fields of Chad and forests of the Congo basin.

The government is nevertheless keen to kickstart direct Chinese investment to turn around the stuttering economy, though its environment agency has made clear it will tackle abuses of the delicate ecosystem in this largely undeveloped west African nation.

The residents of Gunjur, a Gambian village an hour south of the capital Banjul had welcomed the opening of a Chinese fishmeal factory in September 2016, hoping it would bring new jobs to an area reliant on scant rewards from fishing and tourism.

“When the factory came here, a lot of people were happy, including me,” said Badara Bajo, the director of the Environment Protection and Development Group of Gunjur ( EPDGG), a charity.

“We felt that it would help create employment opportunities and perhaps sustainable income to local inhabitants,” he explained, describing his impressions of the Chinese-run Golden Lead company.

Banjul recognised Beijing as the seat of China’s government over former ally Taiwan in March 2016, but the Asian giant was already one of the diminutive African state’s top trading partners, with the Chinese snapping up valuable rosewood timber exports.

Illegal to export in neighbouring Senegal, the prized wood was smuggled over the border into The Gambia from the southern Senegalese region of Casamance, souring relations with Dakar.

Since President Adama Barrow took power in January, Banjul has engaged in a charm offensive with Chinese businesses, seeking funding for the type of infrastructure and energy projects the government says were neglected under former leader Yahya Jammeh.

Barrow praised Trade Minister Isatou Touray for signing an agreement for duty-free trade with China, which he said would “make our goods more competitive, and boost our export potential.”

Touray herself told Chinese media at a regional summit in Abuja in May that “quite a number of Chinese firms are currently engaging with the new administration and we are moving in the right direction.”

Within months of the factory opening in Gunjur, residents began to notice a bad smell, followed by local waterways turning red, and finally wave after wave of dead fish washing up on the shore.

Swimmers in Gunjur’s lagoon began to complain of skin problems.

“The factory is very close to the lagoon. The lagoon is also close to the nature reserve which we have managed for 22 years now,” Bajo said.

Alerted to allegations of waste being piped directly into the sea and the destruction of some the area’s mangroves, the National Environment Agency (NEA) filed a lawsuit against Golden Lead on June 14. — AFP