Gaye is a former market master who rose to the position of deputy clerk of council and then clerk in December 2017.
On his functions as the clerk of the Council, he said they include writing minutes, inviting councillors to meetings and inviting people to meetings. He testified that the KMC used to have monthly meetings between 2018 and 2023.
He said he had records of all the meeting minutes held by the General Council. He provided a document containing the rules of procedures for the KMC and it was admitted in evidence.
He explained that most of the councillors do not understand the rules of procedure, though the KMC provides them with all the required tools, including the Local Government Act, the Local Government Finance and Audit Act, and the Financial Manual for Local Government.
He said the councillors were all given these after they were sworn in, and it was expected that they would read the instruments to familiarise themselves with them.
He stated that councillors lacked interest in reading, adding some of them had interest and used to come to his office for guidance on procedures.
Another factor he cited was that some of the councillors have difficulties reading and understanding.
Witness Gaye said in the past, the CEO of the KMC had the authority to approve payments below D500,000, but when the new council came, the threshold for the CEO was lowered to D100,000. He was asked to provide evidence through meetings.
The witness said when the Talib-led council came, they suspended all loans to staff and passed a resolution for councillors to have loans. He added that the office of the CEO did not implement it because they felt that it was not a wise thing to do.
However, the councillors were provided with what they called 'salary advance'. It is important to note that the councillors were paid allowances.
He said there were meeting minutes covering discussions on loans that the Council contracted from the banks.
On the appointments of Aisha Faal and four others, the witness said it was discussed in General Council after Councillor Habib Ceesay reported the matter there.
He testified that the councillors discussed and increased their allowances, adding that the councillors also discussed the issue of ward allocations and agreed on the amount each ward would receive.
Witness Gaye said that after the allocation, the Ward Development Committee was required to retire the previous funds before accessing another allocation.
Counsel Gomez told the witness that most of the councillors said they used to give their documents to the witness, showing retirement of the funds.
Gaye reacted: “We only provide a covering note and make copies. We give the originals back to the councillor to take to the office of the CEO. We only keep photocopies."
“Have they been retiring?” Lead Counsel Gomez asked. The witness said some of the ward development committees retire, adding that he had meeting minutes showing discussions on internal audit reports.
The KMC had only one counsel, who was Lawyer Yassin Senghore, he pointed out.
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