By Mama A. Touray
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Governments and Lands, Buba Sanyang on Tuesday before the Local Government Commission of Inquiry testified that the salary of Banjul City Council (BCC) and Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) is beyond the limit as par the salary in the Local Government Act.
In continuation of his testimony, Buba Sanyang testified that the salary and allowance of both Banjul City Council and Kanifing Municipal Council were beyond the stipulated salary and allowance which prompted them not to include it in their report.
PS Sanyang was shown files, which he identified one of the files to be a letter from his Ministry addressed to all councils dated 18th July 2019 approving salaries and allowances increment for Chief Executive Officers and another file which he identified as approval of salaries and allowances increment for six Local Government Authorities dated 16th July 2019 address to all councils.
“Six Local Government Authorities were recorded because the other councils Banjul and Kanifing their Chief Executive Officers salary has gone beyond the limit as par the level of other council CEOs,” he told the Commission.
He continued “We only adjust the required allowances as per the Act that is what we brought in to adjust their allowances, there were allowances that were not paid to CEOs, so as per the requirement of the Act, we just brought in all those allowances, as an entitlement for CEOs”.
“Banjul and Kanifing Municipal Council there basic salaries are way beyond that, and if we want to regularize it, it means we have to bring it down which is not a good practice that is why we omitted them together with their Chairpersons and Mayors so that we can look into that separately,” he testified.
Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary Buba Sanyang confirmed to the Commission that the salary for a chairman is D10,000 a responsibility allowance of D6,000, a telephone allowance of D2,000, that’s a gross pay of D18000.
He further told the Commission that the Deputy Chairman has a gross pay of D9,500, while councilors receive a basic salary of D4,000, car transport of D1,500, and ward allowance of D1000, a gross pay of D6,500.
The Permanent Secretary went on that CEOs receive a basic salary of D13,500, a responsibility allowance of D3,000, a telephone allowance of D1,000, that’s a gross pay of D17,500, and other allowances to officers having a Barchelor or Master’s Degree depending on their grades with the pay of D3122.
“The reason this was applied is that some of the allowances we found being implemented were not as per the Act as some were not even given, so we went through what is contained, bring all those allowances out, and informed them, those in the position of CEOs of what the act provided for them like basic salary and allowances what they are entitled to, we have seen instances where CEO are given car and are receiving car allowances, these are the things we clean up then bring in the actual allowances as per the Act” the PS explained.
However, some files like the Area Council staff allowance file, Local government council salaries, and Area Council Staff salaries were presented to the witness and were identified and marked in evidence exhibits by Commissioner Jainaba Bah Sambou.
