There is an existing case where the following were taking to court by the UDP indicating their appointment were contravention of section 123 of the Local Government Act. The provision reads:
“There shall be, for each of the Local Government Areas, except for the City of Banjul and Kanifing Municipal Council, a governor, who shall be a civil servant, not below the rank of a director in the civil service, appointed by the President.”
The case is being heard in the courts. Interestingly enough on 1st June, a press release was issued by the Government Spokesperson indicating that the following are being redeployed:
Mrs Fanta Bojang Njie Samateh Manneh, current Deputy Permanent Secretary (DPS), Ministry of Fisheries and Water Resources as Governor of West Coast Region (WCR), Ms Fatou Jammeh Touray, DPS, Ministry of Agriculture is the new Governor, North Bank Region (NBR), Ms. Ramou Sarr, DPS, Ministry of Transport, Works & Infrastructure as Governor, Lower River Region (LRR), Mr. Musa Mbye, DPS, Ministry of Youths & Sports as Governor, Central River Region (CRR);
and Mr Abdoulie Kah, DPS, Ministry of Defence as Governor, of Upper River Region (URR) while all the deputy governors redeployed to Ministry of Local Government and Lands.
No reason was given by the state.
The attitude of a government to objections to its decisions either through petition or court action should be in line with the dictates of the Constitution, law, national interest, transparency, accountability, probity and conscience. No government should pretend to be infallible. Wrong doing should be accepted in good faith in the public interest. Citizens have a right to petition the government for its action when it deems it to be wrong and to take it to court if the government is unrepentant.
A mature government will not wait for any court action to remedy its action. We will continue to find out the motive for the redeployment.
