After three years of public hearings, D150 millions of taxpayers’ money spent against a D50 million budget, and five months of unexplained silence after submission of the report, government has done what Section 200 of the Constitution demands which is to publish.
The delay itself was a scandal because to spend D150 million to investigate councils, then hide the findings while mayors and chairpersons received letters based on unseen evidence, was to weaponise accountability. It undermined the very transparency the Commission was meant to promote.
Now that the report and White Paper are public, what next matters more than what has been published.
The Gambia has a history of Commissions whose reports gather dust. The Janneh Commission, the TRRC. Strong findings, weak implementation. This must not suffer the same fate. The White Paper must not be a public relations exercise to buy time. It must be a binding roadmap.
Government must publish a clear implementation matrix: who does what, by when, and how it will be monitored. Cabinet must not pick and choose for political convenience.
If the Commission found financial loss, procurement fraud, illegal land allocation or abuse of office, then consequences must follow – regardless of party. A mayor from the opposition and a chairman from the ruling party who committed the same offence must face the same sanction.
Selective prosecution will kill public trust and confirm fears that the Commission was a political tool.
Where criminal culpability is established, files must go to the IGP and Attorney General for prosecution. Surcharge alone is not enough when public funds were looted. Gambians want to see money recovered and culprits jailed.
At the same time, where officials are cleared, they must be publicly exonerated. Reputations damaged on live TV deserve public restoration.
The Commission exposed systemic failure: weak financial controls, no internal audit, councils acting as personal fiefdoms, Ministry of Local Government failing in oversight.
What is needed is a complete overhaul of the Local Government Act 2002, enforcement of procurement and financial regulations, mandatory asset declarations, functional internal audit units, and real devolution of power and resources, not central control.
Councils are not courtrooms. They must collect waste, maintain markets, build roads and as legal battles begin, government must ensure administrative gaps do not paralyse service delivery.
The LG Commission was the most expensive local government inquiry in our history. If it ends only with press statements and no recovery, no reform, no conviction, then D150 million was wasted.
The White Paper is not the end. It is the start. The test of this government is not publishing it. It is implementing it – fairly, firmly and fully.
