By Amadou Jadama
The mayor of the Kanifing Municipality has said his council does not recognise the ruling National People’s Party selected lady councilors, claiming their selection was politicised and due process was not followed.
Talib Bensouda made this statement on Sunday at a rally at the Tallinding ‘Buffer Zone’ recreational park as part of the UDP national tour.
He said: “In the past, the lady councillors were selected by the women themselves without any involvement of politics. Every region selects its councillors. They sent a letter to my office informing me that I should be the first person to do the selection and they asked me to tell my councillors to start selecting their people.
“As we started the selection process, within one week, they brought another letter stating that KMC should not be part of the selection process and that the executive coordinator will now do the selection. They went and selected all the NPP supporters as the lady councillors without consulting anybody. I will not work with any political lady councillor because they are the ones who selected them, and not the women themselves. Therefore, KMC will not recognise them.”
KM Mayor further charged that, since he came into office six years now, he has stopped all the political activities at council as it was before.”
“We in the UDP believe that turning the council into a political bureau will destroy the council itself and the municipality, and that is why we completely eradicated politics from the council, particularly in the work of the council. Because we all know how damaging KMC was. KMC was totally bankrupt and it went to a point where they were selling meat at the council like at the market. They used the money collected from the markets and spent it on their political activities. I stop all those things since I came into office.
“What we have done at KMC, nobody had done that. By the 23rd of every month we pay salaries. Minister of Religious Affairs Hamat Bah said at their Ebo Town meeting that if Ousainu Darboe regards me as his economist, Darboe would fail. But what I can tell Darboe is, given the track record we have at the council, I can assure you that, I am your best economist” he said.
