Yankuba Colley, the Mayor of Kanifing Municipality has announced that he will not run for a third term.
He told a diaspora online radio on Saturday that he had made his decision not to run again in the upcoming Mayoral elections in The Gambia.
Mayor Colley’s announcement came hours after dozens of market vendors and other demonstrators, screaming ‘he [Colley] must go’ unloaded several truck loads of garbage at his office in a protest over his administration’s failure in waste management.
The vendors from Serrekunda market and surrounding were denied by residents of Bakoteh and Manjai to dump garbage at the Bakoteh dump site saying KMC is doing nothing to take care of the dump site which is poses a great health risk.
The market vendors without any options decided to go back to the KMC grounds and offloaded garbage trucks in front of the Mayor’s office in a protest over his administration’s failure in management at the area.
Human rights defender and activist Madi Jobarteh urged Councilors of the Kanifing Municipal Council to act on Section 20 of the Local Government Act to start the process of the removal of Mayor Yankuba Colley.
“The section provides that a mayor can be removed for abuse of office, corruption, misconduct or physical or mental incapacity to discharge his functions. To initiate the process, the section says at least two-thirds of the Councilors must write and sign a notice to the Deputy Mayor stating why they wish to remove the Mayor. Within 24 hours of receiving the notice the Deputy Mayor should send a copy of the notice to the Minister for Regional Administration” he stated in an article published on his Facebook page today.
He added: “Upon receiving the notice, the Minister shall suspend the Mayor and then set up a commission of enquiry to investigate the allegations. If the commission found that the allegations are true, the Minister will report the findings to the President to sack the Mayor” he said.
According to Jobarteh, the case against Mayor Yankuba Colley is overwhelming.
“In the first place, he does not account for the revenue that the KMC generates. There is no transparency and accountability at KMC. KMC has not provided the necessary quality and efficient social services to its residents” he said.
He recalled that in 2015, KMC entered into a contract with an Italian company for the clearing of Bakoteh dumpsite for 2.2 million euros yet until today nothing was done on that site. He said there is refuse all over KMC, which are not collected even though businesses and compounds pay rates and taxes to KMC.
Yankuba Colley he said, had turned KMC into a political party headquarters for APRC and then spent KMC public resources in the business and activities of the APRC, describing it as acts of corruption, abuse of office and misconduct.
“The task now is for the residents of Kanifing Municipality to demand their Ward Councilors to convene an emergency meeting on Monday July 10 to write and sign a notice to the Deputy Mayor for the removal of the Mayor Yankuba Colley” Mad I Jobarteh stated.
Meanwhile, late Saturday evening, residents of Bakoteh and Manjai engaged in a standoff with Police at the Bakoteh dump site and the area is now under lockdown.
