Following the publication of an article captioned NEA, KMC blame Manjai Police, the Daily Observer, on Monday, in a telephone interview, asked Sheikh Alkinky Sanyang, the public relations officer (PRO) of the National Environment Agency (NEA), whether the NEA has prosecuted any defaulter of the anti-littering law since 2007?

Mr Sanyang, in response, said he would have to consult with his boss before he could face the press. He then promised to get back to the Observer  before the end of the day, but failed to do so.

The Daily Observer  again called Sheikh Alkinky Sanyang on Tuesday morning  and posed the same question to him, but he referred the Daily Observer to Adama Cham of the NEA  to respond to the question.

When the same question was posed to Mr Adama Cham, he instead inquired for seeming clarification. “What do you mean by prosecution?” he asked, adding: “You ask our lawyer; we have a legal expert here.”

When our reporter asked Mr Cham to give him their lawyer’s contact so that he could reach the lawyer, Mr Cham said he was “not familiar” with the lawyer and he did not have the lawyer’s phone number.

Meanwhile, Pa Kalifa Sanyang, the public relations officer (PRO) of Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC), on Monday, told the Daily Observer  that the management of KMC would like to disassociate themselves from the remarks made recently by Buba Sillah, one of their cleansing service supervisors, to the Daily Observer, regarding the arrest and detention of someone he alleged to have littered some parts of the municipality in Manjai.

PRO Sanyang explained:

“We have a very good relationship with the police. It was just a few days ago that The Gambia Police Force gave us a work force of more than 100 personnel to help us clean the highway before the visit of the Mauritanian leader President Cheikh Abdallahi.

“It is unfortunate that our cleansing services inspector, Buba Sillah, came to the media to make such assertions without chanelling them through the council’s communication office, which directly deals with the media.”

He therefore extended the council’s appology to the Gambia Police Force for the inconvenience caused by Mr Sillah’s remarks and expressed hope that the cordial relationship that has been existing between KMC and the police would go from strength to strength.

When asked whether there had been any prosecution of any defaulter in court by KMC or NEA since the establishment of the anti-littering law in July 2007, PRO Sanyang said: “KMC as a service delivery institution is responsible for the day-to-day collection, disposal and management of refuse within the municipality but it is the responsibility of the KMC to enforce those environmental and anti-littering laws.”

He added that the NEA “is the custodian of the anti-littering law and not KMC”.

He also said the council has enjoyed maximum cooperation from the police, while describing Mr Sillah’s remarks as an isolated incident which they wouldn’t want to see repeated.

“We are not here to dictate to the police as to how they should go about with their operations, but notwithstanding, this is not to say that we are encouraging people to litter all about town. If anybody is found doing so, we will do just as Buba Sillah did - we will report the matter to the police and we expect that they will handle the matter professionally,”  PRO Sanyang remarked.