By Arret Jatta
The former CEO of Banjul City Council Mustapha Batchilly was yesterday confronted with questions on a number of payments made to the deputy mayor of Banjul, Omar Touray.
Appearing before the Local Government Commission of Inquiry Batchilly started with a voucher of D8000 paid to the deputy mayor. He explained that the payment was for a ceremony Mr Touray attended on behalf of the mayor in North Bank region.
When asked what the ceremony was about, he said he could not recall the specifics but such vouchers accompany invitation letters from the hosts which the Commission could not find on this particular voucher.
“So the validity of this payment is in question,” Lead Counsel Gomez told the witness.
Asked to explain a D100,000 given to the deputy mayor as a personal loan to be deducted from his monthly allowance, Batchilly explained such processes are normally sent to his office where he would minute them to the finance director and then if it’s feasible, the payments would then be effected.
“Is the deputy mayor entitled to a loan?” Lead Counsel Gomez asked, to which Batchilly replied that in a sense, the manual is silent about that part.
Counsel Gomez reminded Batchilly that he himself had said the previous day that when it comes to loans people like the deputy mayor are not entitled because they are not members of staff.
On another payment voucher of D50,000 made to the deputy mayor as contribution towards the visit of the ‘Khaliph of Tijanya’, Batchilly said he could not recall who authorised that.
“Probably this will be between him and the mayor because he represents the mayor at times,” CEO Batchilly said.
A payment of D10,000 made to the deputy mayor as honorarium for coordinating the delegation from Ostend-Banjul was raised by the Lead Counsel.
Batchilly explained that the amount was paid to the deputy mayor because of the way he engaged with the delegation that came from Ostend.
“Why give him an honorarium when he is paid to do this job?” Lead Counsel Gomez asked.
The witness said the mayor must have been happy with what her deputy did and decided to give him that amount of money as ‘encouragement’.
Another disbursement of D10,000 as imprest for the facilitation of logistics in attending various programmes on behalf of the mayor in relation to the Year 2020 celebration paid to the deputy mayor, came up with the Lead Council wanting to know whether the imprest was retired.
The witness replied: “I’m not particularly sure whether this one was retired.”
