Banjul Mayoress debunks rumours on low council impact

By Pa Modou Cham

The Banjul Mayoress Rohey Lowe has revealed in a press briefing yesterday that people have been saying that his council didn’t make any development in Banjul; instead she said council had registered many development in her 100 days in office.

She was speaking in Banjul Mc Cathy Square in an occasion held to brief Banjulians on her 100 days achievements in office.

“I can already share with you that my team and I have already identified several issues that stand in the way for our city to function effectively. This includes, a debt of D8 million owed to several banks and suppliers with interests and overdraft charges accruing; unexplained expenditures without supporting documents worth over D1.6 million in 2017 alone; lack of payment to employees’ retirement benefits and pensions liabilities in the amount of D3million; payment of salaries to about 150 non- or former employees. We have dealt with them all,” she said.

Still on her achievements, she reiterated that she dealt with unjustified daily and monthly allowance of fuel paid to senior managers; non-payment of operational license by a number of stores doing business in our City. She added that for the past years, the Council has been relying on generators rather than on the NAWEC electrical grid due to non-payments, which she settles.” she explained.

However, she added that lack of archive with appropriate storing of the administrative paper work that is necessary for the Council to function and that should make for a transparent Council, is among them and the discovery of these issues was shocking.

“The council gave me the courage necessary to conduct the City’s business differently, for a more transparent, fiscal and administrative path. I and the Council have work together to adopt the measures needed to begin our path to recovery. We have taken the administrative steps to; implement a transparent record keeping system that is efficiently recording the functioning of the City Council; in regards to the inherited debts to several banks, we have negotiated a path forward. We are currently doing the City’s business using only one bank, which limits waste and unnecessary fees,” she pointed.

“We have stopped all payrolls to non-active employees and stopped allowance payment to Directors for sitting in a general Council meeting. The Council has reconnected with NAWEC for its electrical supplies, ending costly generator use. We are now using a coupon system instead of cash purchasing of fuel for Council vehicles to eliminate waste and fraud. As a result, our fuel budget has gone down drastically.”

She said a new policy has been put in place to ensure that loans eventually and exceptionally given to staff members are kept up-to-date and monitored for the application of due interest, and to ensure repayment.