By Arret Jatta
The Commission of Inquiry into Local Governments resumed sittings yesterday with Mayor Rohey Malick Lowe of the Banjul City Council (BCC) making clarifications about payments made to the former deputy PRO of BCC, Fatou Mbenga, the vouchers of which were presented before the commission.
The session began with Lead Counsel Gomez asking the mayor if she was the one who authorised or gave directives to Fatou to make requests for the monies, and the mayor responded in the positive.
Asked about the beneficiary of a particular request amounting to D400,000, in the name of the mayor as council’s support to the flood victims, and whether there was any retirement for it, the mayor responded.
“I’m sure Fatou Mbenga must have done the retirement and the people we have given the money to are all alive. In fact the D400,000 didn’t do much for the victims and my family and I had to spend an extra D300,000 on top of it. That is why it is very painful if people interpreted it as if Fatou Mbenga brought the money to my office. That was not the case though the process might be wrong.”
When told that another payment made to Fatou Mbenga amounting to D30,000, meant for media houses for a town hall meeting was wrong, the mayor agreed:
“I totally agree that the process was wrong. If it were today, we would have done it differently”.
Lead Counsel Gomez further questioned the mayor about a voucher of D100,000 meant for fire victims, through a check drawn in the name of Fatou Mbenga.
The mayor explained that the beneficiaries, (victims of the fire outbreak) could not cash the cheque themselves because most of their belongings were destroyed in the fire including their ID cards. “That was why we drew the cheque in Fatou Mbenga’s name”, Mayor Lowe said.
