By: Nyima Sillah
The National Assembly member for Latrikunda Yaya ‘Menteng’ Sanyang has called for the dissolution of the Local Government Commission (LGC), describing it as costly, time-consuming, and utterly unnecessary.
“This commission was a well-calculated move to damage the reputation of our councils to make it difficult for the councils to attract funding and investments. I will advise the commission to discontinue as it is costly, time-consuming, disruptive, and utterly unnecessary. Over and above all, it also posed the risk of centralizing power and politicizing the investigation of the councils,” LK NAM told The Voice in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
The LK NAM Stressed that establishing and running a commission is expensive as it requires the appointment of experienced lawyers, investigators and other staff, suggesting that the central government should have diverted such resources to other priority areas rather than to a “futility”.
He explained that in a progressive and functional democracy, the central government should not establish a commission of inquiry on local councils as, according to him, it undermines democracy at the grassroots, adding that local councils are elected by the local people and such commission of inquiry can be seen as interference in local council’s democracy.
“Local government commission and its revelations areself-indictment for President Barrow’s inept and chaotic leadership because what is the need for such a commission? What is the commission exposing? It is only exposing the local governments and the Local Government’s Service Commission’s lack of proper oversight to appoint competent people as CEOs and financial directors. The commission did not still indicate a single mayor or chairperson,” Sanyanglamented.
NAM Sanyang claimed that the commission was established to disrupt the election of mayors and chairmen and by extension, the operations of local councils.
“What they wanted was for electorates to lose confidence in UDP local councils because they wanted to create an impression that councils are corrupt or incompetent and therefore don’t vote for them but thank God, the Gambian voters ignored them and voted massively for UDP candidates,” LK NAM stated.
He accused the then local government minister Abba Sanyang of wanting to centralize power and reduce the autonomy of local councils, saying this could have hadnegative consequences for democracy and good governance “since local councils were attracting funds internationally to undertake developments in their areas”.