{"id":92859,"date":"2026-01-01T18:42:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T18:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/uncategorized\/local-government-minister-criticizes-councils-priorities"},"modified":"2026-01-01T19:15:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:15:20","slug":"local-government-minister-criticizes-councils-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/local-government-minister-criticizes-councils-priorities","title":{"rendered":"Local Government Minister Criticizes Councils&#8217; Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. <\/strong><\/span><b>The Minister of Local Government, Lands, and Religious Affairs, Hamat N.K. Bah, on Tuesday accused several local government councils of prioritizing political interests over their core responsibility to serve residents, arguing that political rivalry has undermined service delivery at the municipal level.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the government\u2019s end-of-year press conference, Mr. Bah said many councils have strayed from their development mandate, focusing instead on political positioning rather than meeting the expectations of the electorate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem of the matter is these councils are more political today than they are serving the people that elected them; they are more into politics than delivering service and dividends of democracy to their electorate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The minister rejected claims by some councils that interference from the central government is responsible for poor performance, dismissing the allegations as unfounded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a baseless allegation; it\u2019s not true, and the public knows that they are collecting hundreds of millions on their behalf and they are not putting it into proper use,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He urged councils to take responsibility for how public funds are managed, warning against shifting blame to the central government when faced with public criticism. According to the minister, attributing shortcomings to government interference has become an \u201cescape route\u201d for councils unwilling to account for their performance.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Bah also said the Barrow administration has provided more support to local councils than previous governments, though he did not provide specific figures.<\/p>\n<p>During the briefing, the minister gave an update on the government\u2019s affordable housing programme, which aims to construct 200,000 housing units over the next decade. He said the project, initially expected to begin earlier, experienced minor delays but is now close to implementation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe project is to take off by the next two weeks; we wanted to do it this week, but we had a few hitches. We are almost there, and we are finalizing the details,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Gambia<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Gambia. The Minister of Local Government, Lands, and Religious Affairs, Hamat N.K. Bah, on Tuesday accused several local government councils of prioritizing political interests over their core responsibility to serve residents, arguing that political rivalry has undermined service delivery at the municipal level. Speaking at the government\u2019s end-of-year press conference, Mr. Bah said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":92858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[260],"class_list":["post-92859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-gambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Local Government Minister Criticizes Councils&#039; Priorities - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Minister of Local Government, Lands, and Religious Affairs, Hamat N.K. 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