By Olimatou Coker
Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs Minister Hamat Bah has urged local councils to focus on delivering services and stop politicking after being elected into office.
“You can politicise until you get elected. But once you get elected, please deliver services. You cannot keep on politicking throughout your life, throughout the five years or four years you are elected in office. You defeat the purpose because you give no service to the people. You got elected on a manifesto and should based your work on that,” Bah said at the opening of a two-day national validation workshop on the revised Local Government Act (2002) and the Local Government Finance and Audit Act (2004) at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara Conference Centre.
The minister also expressed his disappointment with the cavalier attitude of some council chairmen.
He stated: “Imagine some council chairmen, knowing the importance of this bill, are yet to be here. One of them I call is not even sure whether anybody is representing him here. Others are at the ferry about to cross when they should have been the first to be seated here. This is rather unfortunate. We need a rethink. If we are running for office, we should know why we are running for office. We are running for office to serve the people, to deliver services to the people.”
Raphaël Brigandi, deputy head of the EU Delegation to The Gambia, said the workshop would provide an opportunity for necessary results oriented exchanges. “It is your collective expertise that will ensure that the revised acts are technically sound, widely supported, and ready for the next steps in the legislative process. The European Union remains a committed partner of The Gambia in this journey, and we look forward to continuing this partnership in the years ahead,” he noted.
The validation was funded by UNDP, under the EU-UNDP GREAT Initiative, in partnership with the Ministry of Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs.
The national validation workshop was a high-level, participatory, and technical forum designed to achieve consensus on the Revised Local government Act 2002 and the Local Government Finance And Audit Act 2004. It brought together approximately 60 key stakeholders from government institutions, local government authorities, civil society, academia, and development partners to review and validate the revised draft bills before their submission to Cabinet, subsequently the National Assembly, academia, development partners, and representatives of marginalised groups (women, youth, and persons with disabilities).
The workshop employed a mix of plenary presentations, focused technical sessions, and syndicate group work to facilitate in-depth review and capture substantive inputs.
The overall objective of this activity is to validate the draft Revised Local Government Act (2002) and Local Government Finance and Audit Act (2004) through a multi-stakeholder consultative process, ensuring they are fit for purpose and ready for submission to the Cabinet.
