The National Environment Agency NEA has responded to Mayor Colley’s accusations that the last cleansing exercise was calculated to sabotage his office just because he comes from the opposition APRC.
The Mayor’s claims which attracted widespread coverage in the local media came at a press conference on his return from Senegal last week.
However in their rebuttal, NEA disagreed strongly with Mayor Colley and went ahead to accuse him of failing to address the needs of his municipality.
The National Environment Agency NEA wishes to put the records straight after the Lord Mayor of KMC Yankuba Colley accused the agency on the Friday 4th August 2017 edition of both the Standard and Daily Observer Newspapers of trying to politicize the just concluded National Cleansing Day exercise (Set-Settal), and that the agency`s decision to organize last Saturday`s Set-Settal without consulting his office was an act of sabotage calculated to paint a bad image of his leadership at a press conference in his office.
This accusation against the NEA by the KMC political garbage is baseless, contradicting and hypocritical with a smear campaign intended to distract public attention from the daily unbearable deteriorating environmental condition especially sanitation and waste management that is affecting the people of the KMC and no serious endeavours are put in place by his office to remedy the situation.
Such professional immaturity and selfishness, combined with sneaky political maneuvering are the manifestation of incompetency demonstrated by the Lord Mayor, whose responsibility is to plough back revenue generated on daily, monthly and yearly basis to the tax payers, but he refused to listen to the plight of the electorates that planted him into that office.
The Lord mayor must be reminded that the National Cleansing Day exercise has been instituted to complement his and the council`s failed effort and inability to collect waste from people they supposed to serve. The exercise, when given approval by the President`s Office, is being coordinated by a task force team drawn from different stakeholders in collaboration with the NEA in which KMC is well represented.
The Elephant-head but with a chicken-brain Yankuba Colley deliberately failed to remember that since the inception of the exercise years ago, three of his senior staff are still very active members of the Task force and attends all meetings including the most recent one of the 25th July 2017. This officers are his own manager of cleansing services Dodou Jallow, Councilor Abdoulie Jallow of Bakau Cape point and Pa Omar Jarju. These gentlemen have been tirelessly working for the betterment of our dear motherland but unlike their confused Mayor.
It could be recalled that since November 2016 to June 2017 there has not been any national cleansing exercise due to the Presidential campaign, subsequent election and the political impasse that followed. This led to a massive accumulation of waste dumped at street corners, markets and homes that remain uncollected by KMC, and limited efforts were done to correct singing plights of our sisters and mothers in need. It can also be vividly remembered that the political impasse that nearly crumpled our beloved nation The Gambia, the same embattled Major played an architectural role to trigger instability, but thanks to the blissful people of the Gambians for their maturity and steadfast.
Due to the unbearable odour, unprecedented increase in the number of flies, maggots, rodents and fear of water-borne diseases break-out as most local communities resorted to dumping their waste in our marine waters, the NEA on the 11th of July wrote to the Office of the President requesting to conduct National Cleansing Day exercise for Saturday 29th July 2017, and approval was given by a letter sent to the NEA dated 17th July 2017, signed by one Louis Moses Mendy on behalf of the Secretary General.
Consequently, The National Environment Agency wrote to all stakeholders including KMC to prepare for the event. One of the dispatched letters for the CEO of KMC was confirmed to have been received by his secretary one Mariam on the 12th July 2017 and the second letter for the task force team member Pa Omar Jarju also confirmed to have been received by the same Secretary Mariam on the 14th July 2017.
Yet during Mayor Colley`s said press conference, he said “the NEA`s decision to organize last Saturday`s Set-Settal without consulting his office was an act of sabotage calculated to paint a bad image of his leadership”. How can a responsible and mature authority utter such dream stories without consulting his officers before accusing a professional entity like the NEA that is bent on covering his ugly face in terms of waste management?
As the National Mobilizer of a political party that nearly plunged the country into political mayhem, and also an architect of the deadly political impasse and who better still refused to address waste problems and provide social services to the community of KMC despite millions of Dalasis collected as revenues for the council, how can Mayor Yankuba Colley accuse NEA of sabotage when he has been indulged in such many errands to sabotage the Government of the New Gambia since the expulsion of his mentored disgraced dictator, Yahya Jammeh.
On a clean sheet of dirty paper, it must have been written with an indelible ink in the minds of the people that the worst ever Mayor of our lifetime in KMC is brother Yankuba Colley, a political garbage that needs immediate disposal or incineration. Please be informed that gone are the days when mouth-watering talks aiming to achieve hypocritical political ambitions and accolade that eventually force institutions to kneel down for total failures and collapse, leaving its people as potential scavengers of the remaining resource of institutions.
Yanks further accused the NEA of doing this because he is from the opposition APRC. Let me assure you that the NEA is not even aware that you have started your journey of political no-return as an opposition party, because the NEA is not a partisan entity as we are professionals in the sustainable management and development of our natural resources and the environment.
NEA would not professionally be allowed to plunge into any uninformed noise maker`s comedy and media talk-show because we have a job at hand as the New Gambia calls for all hands to be on deck as one Gambia, one people, one nation. So better keep quite or resign as a failed Mayor
The self-contradicted Mayor told the media that, “I want to make it very clear that KMC didn`t organize the last cleansing exercise and that being the case, nobody should blame us for anything”. Let me stand to correct the Major Yankuba Colley that KMC NEVER organizes National Cleansing Day exercise and the involvement of soldiers is also not their making. The Gambia Armed Forces is a sitting member of the task force like KMC and are well represented by General Alhagie Mattin at both the meetings and the GRTS TV usual sensitization program before the Set-Settal.
