By Buba Gagigo
The Ministry of Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs asked Kanifing Municipal Council Chief Executive Officer, Sainabou Martin to resume work tomorrow, saying any attempts to obstruct Mrs. Sonko and other persons affected in any form or manner from gaining access to their offices will face the full force of the law.
“The Kanifing Municipal Council has been without a Chief Executive Officer and Director of Finance for nearly two years. The Ministry and the Government of The Gambia can no longer condone this sort of impunity on the side of the Kanifing Municipal Council to thrive any longer. In effect, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, the Lord Mayor and the Council as well as the public are hereby put on notice that the Chief Executive Officer and other suspended staff have been asked to report to work on Tuesday 2|” February 2023.
“Any person or group of persons who attempt to obstruct Mrs. Sonko and the other persons affected in any form or manner from gaining access to their offices will face the full force of the law,” the government says in a press release sent out on Monday.
The statement continued.
“The Ministry of Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs notes with great concern the refusal of the management of the Kanifing Municipal Council to grant the Chief Executive Officer of the Council and the others affected access to their offices to resume work while the Local Government Service Commission and the Commission of Inquiry look into allegations of corruption against them and counter allegations of same against the Lord Mayor and the Council, through laid down administrative and legal procedures.
“The chief Executive Officer was employed and posted to Kanifing Municipal Council by the Local Government Service Commission, a body created by an Act of Parliament to preside over staffing and general management matters of all Local Government Councils. The Council had clearly acted outside the remits of its legal mandate by supposedly suspending the Chief Executive Officer. The Council has further refused to rescind its illegal decision, even after the Local Government Service Commission gave written directives to the effect in addition to a court ruling striking out the restraining order that was initially obtained by the Kanifing Municipal Council”.