By Tabora Bojang
Kerewan Area Council Chairman Papa Tunkara has refuted allegations that he terminated the contract of a UDP supporter Binta Manneh who worked at the council for over 25 years.
In a viral video on the social media, Binta accused the NPP-supporting Chairman Tunkara and CEO Sainabou Martin-Sonko of removing her from the council due to her political allegiance to the opposition.
Ms Manneh further alleged the council refused to pay her services and pension benefits alleging that she was replaced by an NPP supporter.
Binta claimed that following her termination, the deputy regional governor and others coaxed her to join NPP but she “out rightly rejected their offer”.
When contacted by The Standard, Chairman Tunkara said Binta lost her job because of her “persistent absenteeism” from work adding that the decision to terminate her was administrative and not due to her politics.
The chairman stressed that when he took office he pledged that all individuals regardless of party allegiance could work at the council for the greater good of the region’s residents.
“She was always absent from work. Sometimes she will stay home and pay someone to do the cleaning for her and many a time she will not properly clean the council chambers. Upon realising this, we issued her a warning letter stressing the need for her to improve. She refused to comply. Then we decided to deploy her to the Kerewan Market. She refused to go there claiming she is a senior cleaner and should stay at the council. She went to the Office of the Ombudsman for them to initiate dialogue but during the discussions, she apologised but insisted she was not going to her new post. That was when we decided to terminate her contract based on her reckless behaviour,” Tunkara explained.
“At council level, political affiliation is not important to me. I don’t even want to know which party you belong to. So claiming we dismissed her due to politics is misleading. I don’t even know which party she belongs to. It does not concern me. My concern is to bring development to the North Bank,” the chairman said.
In backing his explanation, Tunkara provided a series of warning letters from the council addressed to Binta between 2009 and 2025.
