By Makutu Manneh
Councillors from the Kanifing Municipal Council and the Brikama Area Council traded claims over their respective development records on Tuesday, each arguing that their council had delivered more during its early years in office.
The exchange, during a panel discussion on Kerr Fatou’s Politic Kaacha, began with a question comparing the first five years of the KMC administration led by Mayor Talib Ahmed Bensouda with the performance of the BAC administration under Chairman Yankuba Darboe.
Karamo Ceesay, the KMC councillor for Tallinding South, defended his council’s record by pointing to investments in waste management, transportation, infrastructure, and markets during its first term.
Ceesay said KMC acquired 22 compactor trucks within its first year in office and added more trucks about six months later. He said the council also purchased 40 motorbikes for revenue collectors in 2018, followed by 20 more the following year and additional motorcycles in its third year.
In 2019, he said, the council bought nine new pickup trucks, and two official vehicles for the mayor and chief executive officer, as well as a coaster bus for staff. The vehicles, he said, were purchased outright rather than financed through loans.
Ceesay also pointed to several infrastructure projects, including the construction of an emergency facility at Bundung Hospital, a new complex along the highway in Latrikunda, the concrete road at Tombong Jatta Junction in Tallinding and the Latrikunda Library road.
He sought to draw a distinction between the councils’ financial positions when their respective administrations took office, claiming that BAC relied on overdrafts between October and December during the tenure of its former chairman, Sheriffo Sonko, while KMC did not borrow or use an overdraft after taking office.
Ceesay said KMC also carried out work at five markets during its first term, including facilities in Tallinding Jilifiti Kunda, Bakau and Latrikunda. He challenged BAC representatives to identify comparable market investments during their early years in office.
“In our first term alone, we worked on five markets,” Ceesay said. “Let Sheriffo tell us, when they came to power, which market they worked on that amounted to D3 million.”
Sheriffo Bayo Sonko, BAC’s transport councillor, rejected Ceesay’s assessment, arguing that a council whose leadership has been in office for about eight years should not measure its performance against an administration that has served for only about three.
Sonko said BAC had performed better in governance, financial management, and development during the shorter period.
He said the council had constructed markets in nearly every ward, fenced more than eight women’s gardens, and drilled more than 40 boreholes across the West Coast region.
Sonko said many of those projects were financed from BAC’s own resources rather than through major externally funded programs.
“When we came to the council, we did not have projects such as the EU and others,” he said. “All this funding I’m talking about is from the council coffers. Every councillor in BAC can stand today and tell you, ‘This is what I have done for our people.’”
Sonko also cited the rehabilitation of the Kuloro Health Post and electricity expansion projects among the council’s achievements.
He said the administration of Chairman Yankuba Darboe had adopted a decentralized approach to development, allowing councillors to identify and pursue projects in their individual wards. According to Sonko, every BAC councillor could point to at least three projects undertaken in his or her ward.
He contrasted that approach with KMC, accusing the municipality of concentrating public recognition for development projects around Mayor Bensouda rather than highlighting the work of individual councillors.
The spirited exchange offered a glimpse into an increasingly competitive relationship between two of The Gambia’s most prominent local government administrations. Both are controlled by opposition figures and oversee some of the country’s largest and most politically significant population centers.
With national elections approaching, arguments over local government performance have increasingly become intertwined with the broader political debate, as rival politicians seek to present their records in municipal government as evidence of their ability to deliver services and manage public resources.
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