Corruption Is Ravaging The Brikama Area Council- Said Residents

Brikama Residents Condemn Persistent Financial Mismanagement at BAC

Call on Jammeh to act

By Staff Reporter James Jammeh, Banjul

Residents of Brikama and its surrounding villages are accusing President Yahya Jammeh and Lands and Local Government Minister, Ismaila Sambou, for failing to bail out citizens of Western Region from the repercussions of alleged ongoing financial mismanagement at the Brikama Area Council (BCA). They expressed total dismay and frustrations over the issue which they said started since July 2004, warning that it is high time these two people [Jammeh and Sambou] intervened, as the citizens are in urgent and dare need of assistance.

Angry residents who spoke to this paper pointed to the sand mining controversy which they alleged Council have been realizing on average one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dalasi (D1,250.000.00) monthly. And despite this huge turn over, they said, the authorities are yet to bring enough genuine development projects to the door step of tax payers. They seized the opportunity offered to them by this reporter to question the failure of the present management of the Council to take action against corrupt officials as regards the Council's interim management committee's 2008 report, which revealed a fifteen million dalasi (D15,000,00.00) debt owed to the National Water and Electricity Company (NAWEC) by Council.

President Jammeh himself is on record as having frowned at the authorities at BAC for their inconsistencies and lack of commitment to work. He went further to accuse them of inability, when he officially inaugurated the Brikama Car Park in August 2005.

Four solid years on, this same problem appears ever prevalent within. One disgruntled lady told Freedom that the Council still languishes in serious financial misappropriation, crying that the corrupt officials responsible continue to enjoy while the poor masses languish in a state of sorrow. She called on the president and his Local Government Minister Sambou to act with immediate effect and make the much necessary needed changes ''for the benefit of the majority of the people of the region.''

Another man who also spoke on condition of anonymity echoed similar sentiments. He noted that since the sacking of Fafa Kuyateh as Director of Finance in 2004, the Council's financial management system, as backed by a report by the management committee headed by Lamin Waa Juwara (now Governor of LRR), has been seriously affected both in terms of revenue collection, implementation of projects and in the delivery of services, as there has never been any proper control of revenue. He warned that if the Council is to get back on its feet, Kuyateh must be reinstated, arguing that his sacking, according that Juwara report, was unconstitutional because he was never issued any official letter of termination.

An insider at BAC acknowledged the existence of this situation, but he told this reporter that it is left to the executives to act now since all the recommendations made last January have since been forwarded.

The people though are working had to put their point across, and they are very keen to see that something is done to salvage them from what they call a terrible situation that is affecting the lives in the region. They warned that if the president and his minister fail to act, they would be held responsible for what might result.

More on BAC scandal would be publish by this paper as investigations progress.  

ENDS:12/26/09