By Makutu Manneh
Mayor Talib Ahmed Bensouda has expressed dismay over President Adama Barrow’s promise to appoint administrators for the Kanifing Municipality and Banjul City Councils, saying such attacks are unhealthy.
“I want to remind the Ministry for Local Government and the state that what the law indicates is that there should be no appointment for governors for KMC and Banjul City Council. This is the law,” Mayor Bensouda said. That he was hoping for government and parliament to push the agenda of having more mayors and city councils, than to put an appointed body to oversee the functions of these Councils. He said if these Councils are given the powers due to them and allow them exercise their functions, the lives of the people will improve.
The KMC Mayor added that the Supreme Court has recently ruled against dissolving Councils, three months before the election of Mayors and Chairpersons. He said they are thinking of how to get more mayors and city councils in the country, for better representation and service delivery.
He the president’s promise of bringing in administrators and governors for the period before the election of Mayors and Chairpersons, will only take the country backwards, at a time when the world is moving towards a human and community based approach of solving local governance issues.
The mayor further said that “we” should graduate from the ‘politics of attacks’ because the country is small and poor for “us” to be fighting among “ourselves”; that “we” must preserve the unity and harmony that “we” are known for and be involved in the competition of ideas because this is the only way “we” can develop “our” nation.
