By Landing Ceesay
Five Councilors from the Banjul City Council have accused the Mayor of Banjul, Rohey Malick Lowe, of taking over receiving two hundred thousand dalasis in imprest.
“There are travels Mayor Lowe embarked on which are not authorized by the Council, and she took money from the council as imprest. Those trips are private visits, not the work of the Council. The money is more than D200,000.00,” Councilor Basirou Ndow, Chairman of the Finance Committee, Banjul City Council, alleged.
These allegations were made in response to a claim Mayor Lowe made in an interview with Radio Presenter, PaNderry Touray, that the city is paying each member of Council’s Finance Committee three thousand dalasis (D3,000) per sitting. Councilor Ndow refutes this amount, stating that each member of the Committee is paid one thousand, five hundred dalasis (D1,500) per sitting.
Councilor Ndow reiterated that budgeting is taking longer than expected because it is a working document that needs no rush to finalize.
“As the Finance Committee, we are working on a budget of one hundred and sixty-eight million dalasis (D168,000,000.00) for the whole fiscal year. So if we are being paid D1,500.00 per sitting, that is justifiable,” Ndow told the media.
The five councilors made these remarks at a Press Conference, on Thursday, December 15, 2022, following Mayor Lowe’s Interview with Star FM that the BCC finance Committee is prolonging the budget finalization to get more allowance.