Waste Dumped at Mayor’s Office

The Saturday’s cleaning exercise at the busy Serekunda Market and its surrounding organised mainly by business communities, especially those selling therein, consumers, and residences within and beyond ended with dumping the collected waste in front of Mayor Yankuba Colley’s office at the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) grounds.

The development followed what the garbage cleaners for the day called ‘’the council’s deliberate failure to collect waste gathered from the daylong cleaning exercise’’, hence no option than to put them on their toes and be environmental sensitive to public places like the Serekunda Market and beyond.
The scene was visited by government ministers including the Interior Mai Fatty, acting executive director of National Environment Agency (NEA)-Mr.Momodou Suwareh,chief executive officer of KMC Pa Kalifa Sanyang, Inspector General of Police Landing Kinteh, KMC councillors and members of the press from both print and electronic.
A closed door meeting between concern authorities was held later in the day to discuss on the issue.
The unprecedented closure of the dumpsite without the consent of the council and the government by those perceived to be affected communities such as Bakoteh, Manjai among other satellite settlements, its impact on waste collection and dumping by the council were believed to account for the Saturday’s incident.
However, shortly before the closed door meeting, Mayor Colley denied any wrong doing as opposed to allegations of his council deliberately failed to cooperate with the spirited volunteer cleaning team for the waste to be collected and dumped at the dumpsite. He further denied personally instructing and instigated the cited community members to resist dumping of collected waste by the volunteers.
Mayor Colley described these allegations as totally false and baseless, saying how on earth he could be guilty of such an act. According to him, he has only one home and that is KM and it’s the place where he is expected to be buried once he died, hence he has no reason to make life difficult and unbearable for the people of the area, the country and humanity at large.

For Colley, arbitrary closure of the cited dumpsite occasioned hardship for his council, as could be seen in dumping of its collected waste in Banjul behind the prison. He said he could not understand a community going against national interest by taking the law into their own hands and close a dumpsite like Bakoteh without the consent of the council and the government.
‘’For the past 22 years under Jammeh, nobody dare close a public dumpsite like Bakoteh. I cannot definitely understand the action of the affected communities, despite the fact that the council and partners doing everything to address the issue,’’ Mayor Colley told the press.
Further responding to questions, he denied allegation that KMC signed huge money contract with certain Italian contractors for waste management at the said site. He acknowledged recent signing of waste management project between the government and a company in the USA, which, once implemented could greatly address the Bakoteh dumpsite crisis.
The mayor also denied allegation of sabotaging the current coalition government led by President Adama Barrow. According to him, the council is doing all it could within their resources to address collection problem within the council and beyond, but sabotage is far away from their actions and intentions for the country and her people.
The acting executive director of NEA Mr.Suwareh described the incident as unfortunate and assured of the government’s commitment to resolve it. He backed up his comment with cited MOU signed between the government and the said USA waste management company.
He also spoke about his office’s readiness to address environmental issues of the country in accordance with their mandate.
Nonetheless, the scene at KMC grounds seems to be ungovernable by angry participants of the day long exercise who were visibly seen spoken negative words against the management of KMC and its mayor.
They further alleged that lack of comfort resulting from uncollected waste, inspired this massive general cleaning of the market and beyond, cognizant of the importance of the market towards sustainable economic development of the country and beyond.
 by Sana Jawara