Press release
The Brikama Area Council reiterates and clarifies that there has been no unilateral decision of the BAC to increase tax or rates, as alluded to by Hon Minister Musa Drammeh to the Assembly, as reported by The Standard Newspaper on Friday, 4th April 2025.
According to the said report, the Hon Minister claimed that the BAC may have taken a unilateral decision to increase taxes, which were not in line with the taxes he approved as the Minister of Local Government in 2019.
Unfortunately, the Hon Minister failed to explain which specific tax has been increased by the BAC, that is not in the tariff he approved.
It is contended that the Hon Minister’s allegations were mainly based on conjecture and speculation supported by no iota of facts.
In fact, the issue that broached the topic in the Assembly related to annual property tax rate. This was falsely claimed by Nominated Member, Maimuna Darboe, as being increased from D300 to D2000 for properties worth more than D500,000 in capital value, by the current council. This is not true, as that increment happened in 2019 and gazetted in the BAC tarrifs since 2020.
That increment was also approved by the Honorable Minister Drammeh in 2019 and came into effect on 1st January 2020.
Thus, the Brikama Area Council has not increased any taxes or rates from 2020 to date. Instead, the council is only implementing and enforcing the tariffs, which were introduced by the previous council and approved by the Honourable Minister Musa Drammeh in 2019 and came in force in 2020.
BAC rebukes any claims or insinuations that the current council has increased any taxes or rates of since. Such claims are false and holds no iota of truth. No such increments occurred and the current council is only proactive in ensuring that everyone pays their fair share of taxes for the development of our region of the West Coast Region.
