Yankuba Darboe, Chairman Brikama Area Council
We knew well before the disbursement of our D28 million to the people of West Coast Region that the ***-***** President and his cabal will come after us, for doing just that, which is bringing development to our people!
So they have drawn the battle lines, and unsurprisingly they are coming after our revenue. They did it previously under the pretext of Operation Clear The Roads, then we disbursed D500,000, now that amount has increased now they are coming after our tariffs.
It started with the President’s appointed Chief Lamin Mondo Jatta, who shamelessly call on the people of WCR not to pay their property rates to the council, BAC. Instead of condemning such dangerous comments, which one would expect from a reasonable and responsible government, the President’s adviser, Dou Sanneh, went on air to defend him. Now his nominated MP Maimouna Ceesay Darboe has been asked to take it to Parliament.
President Barrow is so easy to predict! All the people mentioned above are appointed directly by him. None of them is an elected representatives of the people! Now that I pointed this fact, they will push their elected representatives to also join the bandwagon, but we are not daunted by their gimmicks!
And they will fail in their misinformation of the people that we increased the BAC land rates tariffs from D300 to D2000 per annum. This is the biggest lie of the century being peddled by the President’s nominated MP Maimuna Ceesay Darboe!
The current tariffs at BAC were introduced by Sheriffo Sonko, the former Chairman of BAC and Hon. Minister Musa Drammeh, in 2020 not 2025. How can they foolishly attempt to blame us for that increment, which we inherited from them!
Let them go back and check their gazetted records for the BAC tariffs, they would bear witness to their fallacies and misrepresentations!
Ironically, these people never complained about the 100% tax increment they introduced under this President Barrow Government, through GRA taxes on everything, even bottle of water, shipments of goods into this country, airport landing fees, etc. which is causing the cost of living crisis in this country, but want to complain about the BAC tariffs, which is bringing development to our region of WCR!
I challenge President Adama Barrow, who is pushing his surrogates to come after us at BAC, to declare this nation a tax free nation, where both central and local governments will not charge a Butut for anything to the two authorities. Let him close down the GRA, if they are that concerned about the tax burdens on Gambians! I bet he will never do such!!
Please be advised that you are mandated by law to do what you are doing, we are mandated by law to do what we are doing, however you want to abuse your powers to come after us for doing what we are mandated to do by law! How can your actions be justified?!
You are not paying any development subvention to our council, yet you want our council to be redundant! Please note the people of West Coast Region want to prosper just like URR, where you want to develop!!!