One of the greatest causes of dispute in Gambian society has been the contradiction between those who exercise party power and those who exercise state power in villages and districts.
In many, many cases the village alkalo or headman has to be the victim. Projects do sometimes provide farm implements pipe borne water facilities and other labour saving devices to villagers and those who hand over the project may inform the alkalo that the material is from the executive as the head of a party rather than the head of a state.
Consequently, the party representative in the village would claim responsibility to manage the facility instead of the allowing them to be managed by the village development committee and the alkalo. Hence it becomes difficult to distinguish what is a state project and what is a party project.
One would have thought that such problems would never recur again. Currently, Foroyaa is investigating a case in CRR north that occurred in Kuntaur Jakaba, CRR North where a tractor was provided and the VDC is excluded from managing it and it is instead managed by party representatives. Foroyaa is trying to find out the legitimate source of the tractor and the ultimate objective of giving it to the village. We will identify the source of dispute between party representative and the VDC in order to determine whether marriage between party and state at the village level is a still a reality or not. The investigation is on and readers will be duly informed.
