Written By Pa Nderry M’Bai
Email: panderrymbai@gmail.com
Tel: 919-749-6319
“We are denied entry unfortunately, as you are witnessing, based on the fact that the security at the gate have been given instruction not to allow us entry if we report to work for whatever reason we don’t know. But the reason why we reported to work this morning is that we got copies of a letter that was sent to the Lord Mayor advising him to rescind the decision of sending us on indefinite leave. The letter is from our ministry, ministry for Local government and land and it is signed by the minister for local government and land honorable Musa Drammeh,” Sainabou Martin Sonko, the suspended Kanifing Municipal Council Chief Executive Officer told Star FM TV on Wednesday morning.
The suspended CEO and her co-suspended KMC management members reported to work on Wednesday, only to be entry into the municipal council. They were told by the KMC police officers that they weren’t allowed to entry the KMC at this time, pending the outcome of the investigations of the fraud case against them.
Despite being cleared by the Local Government Minister Musa Drammeh to resume work, Mayor Talib Bensouda wouldn’t heed to the minister’s advise for Mrs. Sonko and co to resume work.The Mayor has decided to ignore the Minister’s directive.
The suspended CEO has questioned the legality of the Mayor’s move to send them on leave. She has accused Mayor Bensouda of not following the set regulations that should warrant for a CEO to be sent on leave.
“The reasons are based on two facts: First the Mayor wrote to the ministry, recommending for our termination and to also send us on indefinite leave with immediate effect. We also filed in a petition against the council for taking that decision against us because we felt that due process was not followed in reaching this decision,” she argued.
“The purported letter sending us on indefinite leave, that was written to the ministry, was actually dated even before the General Council, the letter referred to for coming up with that recommendation. So, the letter was written well before and even at the General Council, we were not given the chance to be heard to explain our side of the story. The General Council met and came up with a decision and apply it on us. So, we are sure it very unfair on us, we decided to consult our lawyers and based on the lawyers advise, we file in a petition against the Council that was submitted to the ministry. Based on that and based on the letter that the mayor earlier submitted to the ministry, the ministry responded with this letter that I am referring to that made us to report to work this morning,” she added.
Regarding the D12 million dalasis loan that she acquired from the AGIB Bank on behalf of the staff association without the mayor’s consent, Mrs. Sonko contends that she hasn’t seen any wrong with her actions. She further contended that it is wrong for anyone to accuse her of theft.
“That’s totally wrong. I accepted responsibility as a Chief Accounting officer for signing the corporate guarantee on behalf of the welfare, but I did not say I was sorry. I wrote in the letter, the whole content of the letter that was written, in fact it was not an apology letter, I can give you the email that I sent to the mayor, in which I attached the purported apology letter. In that letter I explain the reason that made me to reach the decision of signing the corporate guarantee and also stated in the letter that if it is perceived to be illegal, then I regret my action,” she remarked.
“I am the rightful authority to sign any financial document for the Council, so I can forge an authentic document with my signature and the stamp. It is not forgery, an investigation should have been conducted to this matter and this was the information that should have been sent to the ministry, requesting them to investigate the matter, given the portfolio of my position as a Chief Executive Officer and being appointed by the ministry, the Council alone cannot take a decision to send me on leave or terminate me. The most that they can do, according to the local government public service regulation is to make a recommendation if the CEO is found wanting to the service commission to investigate the affairs of the CEO to come up with a decision. A recommendation is okay but going further to usurp the powers of the commission, that was not due process,” she added.
Mrs. Sonko had a brief exchange of words with the security officers on duty. But she couldn’t succeed in having access to her office. She left the council with disappointment.
“I have to go home and also communicate to the ministry. We will go home, it is not me alone, as you can see, these are, as they are referring to my co-conspirators. Dr. Keita is not around. Here is Mam Kaba Bah, the Vice President of the KMC staff association and this is Mr. Baboucarr Sanyng the treasurer. So, what we will now is to go home and report what we have experience here to the ministry and we will wait for them to advise us accordingly,” she concluded.
The post BREAKING NEWS: MAYOR BENSOUDA OVERWRITES LANDS MINISTER DRAMMEH’S DECISION TO RESCIND THE SUSPENSION OF CEO SONKO AND CO! appeared first on Freedom Newspaper.