By Lamin Fatty
The new chief executive officer of Basse Area Council has expressed concerns about how council is losing revenue at the SareNgai “Lumo”.
Ousuman Touray made these remarks during a surprise visit he made to SareNgai “Lumo” on Monday 9th December 2019, after seeing buildings and structures belonging to Basse Area Council not generating income for the council due to poor condition in which they are. SareNgai Lumo is one of the most popular and biggest Lumo (weekly market) in URR.
He said those buildings will be soon renovated and divided into canteens and stores that will be rented out to people for revenue generation by the council.
“I am here today to assess by myself some of difficulties and challenges faced by the vendors of this Lumo and also to know the situation of the council’s properties in the Lumo. I am ready to closely work with the chairman, councillors and the collectors at the ‘Lumos’ to make sure that any duty and other revenue collected from any Lumo is used for developing that particular Lumo,” Mr. Touray.
The Alkalo of SareNgai Foday Jallow and Bakary Bah a Lumo committee member at the abattoir highlighted some the constraints faced by the vendors. They said there is no water, toilet and shade in the Lumo.
“Since 1982 when this Lumo was established there has never been any water facility from where the people can fetch water for drinking, no toilet facility, no shade where we can stay under to protect ourselves from the sun or rain and since then people have been paying duties at every Lumo (weekly market). If you sell your animal here in the Lumo, the duty paid is D20 for cattle and D10 for donkey, horse, sheep or goat is D10; and these are collected every week,” they lamented.
In response, CEO Touray asked the Alkalo to show him where the toilets should be located and assured that before the next two market days the issue of toilets would be addressed. As for the water and shade problem, he promised that the council will start addressing them within six months.
