By: Foday Manneh
During his inauguration speech at the swearing-in ceremony of the newly elected council officials of the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) on Saturday, the re-elected Mayor Talib Ahmed Bensouda vowed to call the President on Monday to seek his support.
“On Monday, I will call on His Excellency to seek his support and extend the collaborative hand of the council. We are energized. We are motivated! We are ready to work harder than ever for you, the people,” Talib said.
“We will continue to ask for more decentralization of functions from the central government to take more responsibility for the needs of the people of KM,”
Talib, who contested under his party’s ticket the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), got re-elected in the just concluded Mayoral and Chairmanship elections with a landslide victory over his close contender, Bakary Badjie of the President’s National People’s Party (NPP).
Mr. Bensouda said he and his councilors are ready to serve their people better and more efficiently without partisan politics. He will also seek to realize the changes to the relevant legislation so that the council can be granted more autonomy.
“Over the next four years, we will call on the government to be our partner and collaborator. We will do our utmost to work with the government so that together we can demonstrate to the people that we can deliver even faster development through unity,” Talib promised.
“We invite the government to let go of more authority to KMC so that we can ease its development burden. This will enable the government to focus more on increasing its oversight function, to guide us, and to assist us in increasing our capacity to serve our people,” he added.
In the coming four-year term in office, Talib is focused on road infrastructure development within the municipality and developing a low-cost municipal bus transport service, among others.
