A renown Gambian photojournalist and a senior member of the Gambia Press Union (GPU) described the three-year term of the current executive of GPU as an “abysmal failure”, utterly blaming the executive for not living up to expectations.

Baboucarr Trawally, who is the president of the Gambia Professional Photographers Association, walked into the Daily Observer’s offices on Sunday, fuming with outrage at the performance of the GPU executive.

He did not mince his words, when he called for the creation of an interim committee to regulate, restructure and audit the reports and accounts of the executive before the congress scheduled for March 22.

He said the interim committee should be mandated to handle and run the day-to-day affairs of union for at least a month before the congress takes place.

“I have been in the union since its inception but I have observed that the executive have not delivered as expected,” he said.

“In 2005, I was among the task force committee that was set up to look after the affairs of the union and we have looked into the recommendations made by members and some of the resolutions passed,” he added.

“There were some lapses within the past 3 years. The gpu only concentrates on the monthly meetings. There was no Annual General Meeting (AGM)”, Trawally noted.

According to him, GPU has appointed an administrator who is not an ex-officio of the executive, which he added, is not in line with the constitution.

He also insisted that the accounts of the union should be audited for members of the union to know how much is in the accounts, among other things.

He called on GPU members to be well sensitised about this issue and make sure that a new date is set for the congress, to enable them regulate all the above mentioned problems and failures of the executive.

He finally proposed that the congress should be held in July, to enable members to audit the accounts and solve other problems first.