Fisheries committee hands over D163, 685.00 to town commission

By Mafugi Ceesay A fisheries interim committee in Bakau, constituted in 2013 to steer the affairs of the coastal town’s fish landing site, has handed revenue it said it generated over the years to the town’s community commission. The committee under the leadership of Dodou Bojang, a former Alkalo and the head of the landing site, relinquished more than D163,685.00 to the town’s committee. The committee said a total of D181,585,00 was collected over the period. Abdoulie M Jallow, former councillor, who read the budget at the landing site Monday, said at the time of their taking over, facilities such as the ice plant machine and the cold room, were completely damaged. He also said the two generators, platforms in the smoke room and those used outside for fish drying, were all not functioning. “Office resources for the proper filing and keeping of records were also not available for the committee and due to the eroded physical structures, lack of adequate capacity, electricity, irregular supply of water to run the project and severe erosion by the sea, the ministry of fisheries formally categorised the project as scrap.” According to him, the former committee, whom they took from, were not even formally appointed to oversee the project. “The committee therefore did not receive any formal handing over of documents or any bank account. Nonetheless, we began operations in order to sustain the project.” Interim Chairman Dodou Bojang, said he was voluntarily financing the “entire expenditures” of the project. “It is quite unfortunate that this facility had never had any major maintenance since its inception and therefore encountered numerous irreparable damages which put the facility in a very devastating condition. It had also gone through lots of different inefficient managements due to poor and inadequate capacities. These anomalies resulted in the handing over of all facilities to the local councils under the jurisdictions of either the mayors or governors,” he explained. Explicating further on how his appointment as chair of interim committee came about, he said on 3 October 2013, he was formally appointed by the former Lord Mayor of the KMC, Yankuba Colley, to oversee the day to day running of the centre until a proper management team was instituted. “In consultations with relevant stakeholders, a management committee was formed,” he added. Alhagie Soseh Kolley, a former APRC bigwig now adviser and finance controller of the project, Kalifa Jammeh, former NAM of Bakau and central mosque Imam Omar Jammeh, all spoke at the event, and hailed the interim committee for “a job well done.”]]>