By Buba Gagigo
Kemo Bojang,Youth Councilor at the Kanifing Municipal Council says the government’s announcement of the cleaning exercise last month was conducted to taint Mayor Talib Ahmed Bensouda and the KMC.
“There was a publication by the Ministry of Environment to say that two months ago, I think from January every month there will be a cleaning exercise. February has passed and no publication was made or no directive was given for a cleaning exercise to be held. This just goes to show that it was politically motivated and a way to demoralize and try to tarnish the image of the Kanifing Municipal Council, in the sense that they were pushing a narrative that KMC was dirty,” Kemo Bojang said.
He said the government’s plan to tarnish the image of the Kanifing Municipal Council has been pioneered during the president’s meet the tour;
“You will remember that during the Meet the People’s Tour, both the President and the Minister of Land had said openly said that KMC was the dirtiest municipality even comparing it to Brikama saying Brikama was better. With that, they had made a proxy war in the way of sanitation and bringing people onboard to KMC to try to clean it with the President and his cabinet spearheaded but were countered and tackled by Mayor Bensouda and his council with Mayor Bensouda providing twenty-four tractors and also skip bins and two hundred and fifty personnel. Since then, we didn’t hear anything about the Set-Setal proposal and we have exposed them once more, that they are only interested in politicizing even the health and well-being of the Gambian people,” he said.
The youth councilor said that president Barrow’s government has continued to show its lack of respect for the people and said the government has shown that they have no interest in making sure that the people’s wellbeing is paramount saying they (the government) will trivialize even the littlest of things.
“Because it doesn’t make sense how you will try to compare KMC and the West Coast Region and try to say that KMC needs to be cleaned when the West Coast, which is known to be the dirtiest area council unfortunately, is not even mentioned because they are a surrogate to your party or their supporters of your agenda,” he said.
He said they are not at war with the president but said the president has continued to be very offensive, especially against Mayor Bensouda and the councilors.