By Omar Bah
The Kanifing Municipal Council, KMC, has expressed disappointment and concern that the Bakoteh dumpsite crisis has been politicised by some people.
In a statement sent to The Standard, the Council alleged that some local politicians are trying to give legitimacy to the group of people who unlawfully closed down a public facility.
“If councilors, parliamentarian and Alkalolu of Bakoteh and Manjai are all opposed to the actions of this group, it would be surprising if any other politician or group can be more concerned, ”the KMC statement argued.
According to the KMC no matter how committed the government may be to guaranteeing civil liberties, no individual or group of people should be allowed to flout the law with impunity in the name of exercising their democratic rights.
“This is a complete deviation from the crux of the issue at hand and is not liable to bring about any constructive solution to the problem,” the council said in the statement signed by its CEO Pa Khalifa Sanyang.
The Council lamented as unfortunate that only a handful of people laid siege to the Bakoteh dumpsite for the past three months, disrupting routine services of the council on a massive scale.
“Consequently, we witnessed an unprecedented accumulation of waste and the emergence of indiscriminate dumps across the municipality.”
According the Council, the situation eventually escalated on Saturday when dozens of trucks loaded with waste collected by volunteers who engaged in a community cleansing exercise at the Serekunda market were prevented from dumping at the Bakoteh dumpsite.
“The volunteers felt this was not right and apparently reechoed the stand of the Council that the site should be opened unconditionally by any means appropriate in the larger interest of the Municipality,” the Council said.
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