Can you please allow me space in your widely read newspaper to send this word of appreciation to the honourable mayor of KMC, Yankuba Colley on the just concluded workshop held in his municipality on the naming and renaming of streets in KMC.

 This is a very good initiative and I am confident that such an initiative can be implemented as planned. Of all the former mayors who had come and gone, none had ever thought of taking up such a daunting task like this. All what was done was a few adjustments here and there and in fact people did not take those names seriously.

From the beginning, this should have been the first priority of the town planners because the tracing out of any compound within the Municipality can only be done by the street name.

In all the developed and even developing countries, all street names are clearly labelled and all the compounds found within those streets are numbered accordingly and this is how people locate the compounds they wish to go without much difficulty.

The renaming of streets is not something bad but let the people be well informed of these new names because the world is prone to that constant change all the time and whether we like it or not, we either accept the change or change will change us.

But one thing that I would want you to bear in mind in the naming and renaming process is that some streets cannot be given names at all hence they are not streets per se but just mere outlets that allow exit. And the simple reason for this is that there are certain compound owners within KMC who because of greed or selfishness have succeeded in creating inconvenience for their next door neighbours by virtually blocking them and simply denying them access to the main high way.

I do not know when the campaign is to start but at any time that it does, there are certain streets that do not only have to be named or renamed but a complete restructuring is needed so that they can be qualified to be called streets before the naming and renaming process.

With the power and authority bestowed upon you as the mayor of KMC, I have no doubt that such a plan can be implemented. This is very common in all areas of your municipality and in fact is the main cause of water blockage during the rainy season - leading to flooding and the outbreak of diseases.

I thank you for your leadership qualities and I have no doubt that with your able team(s), this can be done in the quickest possible time. Let all leaders of institutions heed His Excellency’s clarion call for development and nothing else but development and I bet my life that within five years, The Gambia will be a country to be admired.

God Bless and guide you in your endeavour to make KMC to a better and more place to live and let it not end in workshops but in work streets. Though so many issues need to be addressed, let me start up with this one.