Veteran diplomat, Haggi Jawara, who is Gambia’s consul general in Angola, has threatened to take the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) to court if the country’s largest municipality fails to honor its agreement and collect garbage in his residence on Kairaba Avenue.
Consular Jawara claimed that he and the KMC “Mballit” team reached an agreement in May 2022 for weekly garbage collection at his home. He further accused KMC Mballit officials of collecting money from his people while he was away without issuing receipts.
Meanwhile, a certain Abba Jammeh, KMC Mballit team supervisor confirmed that some team officials and Mr. Jawara had an agreement for weekly garbage collection from his home.
Speaking to reporters at his residence on Kairaba Avenue, Consular Jawara said: “In May, before leaving for Umrah, I went to Bolong and told him that I wanted to sign a contract with you for collect my trash, and he told me big trash bin it’s 40 dalasis per pickup so he told me you can pay at the end of every month and he told me they will come and pick up the trash every week but they haven’t come to pick up the waste for three weeks.”
“When I was in Saudi Arabia, I called them to go pick up the waste. Their staff came here and asked my wife to pay them 1,000 dalasis. My daughter decided to give them 700 dalasis. After they came back and asked for another 500 dalasis, however i refused to pay the third time and told them that we had agreed on 120 dalasis and at the end of the month i had to pay 480 Dalasis.
“When I came back from Umrah, I went to Bolong to tell him that the waste is too much and they should go and collect it because it has been a month since they went to collect the waste despite our contract. To my surprise, they gave me a letter asking me to pay 5000 dalasis. And I asked why? From May to now, what we had agreed is that if the month ends, that ‘they come to get their money; and today I went to pay 1000 dalasis and he told me to pay 5000 dalasis.”
Jawara added: “I then asked him about the receipt of the 500 and 700 that his people collected from my family? I think it is laziness and an attempt to disrespect Gambians. S’ they can’t do the job let them go and allow other Gambians who I want to do the job to do it I will write a letter to KMC to reply me and tell me a clear message because the waste problem is the problem of all Gambians, not just me,” he postulated.
Abba Sanyang, while responding to allegations that some of his associates collected money from Mr. Jawara without him (Jawara) issuing receipts, said: “It is not to my knowledge. What I can confirm is that we issued Mr. Jawara with an invoice stating that he was supposed to pay 5000 dalasis We understand that for months Mr. Jawara has not been paying.
Asked how many months Mr. Jawara hasn’t paid, he said, “I don’t know, because it’s the people who collect the waste who know about it,” he replied.