To reiterate, on a similar message lst month (Apr-2023), local government authorities (LGAs) in The Gambia reportedly collect D600,000,000 from Gambians every year. During the past five years, that is about D3 billion. Did the benefits that Gambians got from the Councils commensurate with that D3 billion?
Additionally, the LGAs are legally responsible for using 60% of people’s monies to benefit the people directly. In some countries in Africa I work with, their legal requirement is 80% of the funds meant for their citizens should be used to benefit their citizens directly.
Now, 60% of the estimated D3 billion is D1.8 billion. Where has that D1.8 billion been used to benefit those who contributed the estimated D3 billion? This should have been the main focus of the councillor election, and this should be the main focus of the mayoral and chairpersons elections, in addition to plans as to how the D3 billion or more, in the next five years, will be used to benefit the contributors to that D3 billion.
What type of people would give D3 billion to a group of people, from among themselves, for that group of people to manage on behalf, for the benefit of everybody, for five years, yet, after the five years, when that group of people come to ask for another mandate to manage another D3 billion for another five years, no one asks about how that group managed the previous D3 billion, and what benefit did it bring to people? No one cares about how another D3 billion that they will get forced to contribute to will be managed by that group of people for another five years?
Is that not strange?
Is that ignorance or self-abnegation, making oneself a pitiful object of perpetual exploitation by one’s fellow human beings?
What is the purpose of being a human being if one continues to accept living in poverty because one agrees with the monies and other resources that one is contributing to for one’s benefit, not to be used for one’s advantage?
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Article contributed (By Abdoulie Jawo, London) 26/05/2023!