Mayor Bensouda, who was elected as mayor of Kanifing Municipality, the county’s most densely populated municipality in May 2018, promised to serve only two terms.
However, fast-forward leading to the end of his second term, his personality has become a talking point among pundits, stirring debate regarding his political future.
In this recent exclusive interview with The Point, Mayor Bensouda, maintained that politicians are going to talk and of course he belongs to a political party which is the United Democratic Party (UDP).
“We have a party leader, who is His Excellency Lawyer Ousainou Darboe and he (Darboe) made it very clear to all party supporters that he doesn’t want to hear people talking about presidential ambition or flagbearership.”
In this light, Mayor Bensouda stated that right now what people should be focusing on more is holding government accountable, making reference to the daily realities of lives in the country, which he said, leaves much to be desired.
“Many things are going wrong right now in The Gambia. There is no basalt coming into the country and we just had a total energy shutdown with NAWEC that went for three days. We have a high cost of living, depreciating currency, youth that are leaving in droves -10, 000 every year through back-way to Europe with many losing their lives. So we have real problem and the work of opposition is to hold government accountable and not distracting ourself with political intentions. I for one have never spoken about any presidential aspirations whether privately or publicly. So I guess I am just now a big fish that people like to talk about which is normal.”
Further quizzed as to whether ‘if given the chance he would run? Bensouda maintained that right now nobody knows what is going to happen and the issue is something that they don’t even want to entertain.
“But when the time is right or we are closer to the time, then people will decide.”
Commenting on some of the challenges the council faces, Mayor Bensouda maintained that one of the biggest challenges the council is faced with is lack of cooperation from government, sometimes leading to open confrontation.
“We have seen in the past and I think everybody follows the battle with government we had and the many attempts to undermine and distract and it is still ongoing.”
This, he said, is very difficult for municipalities and very demanding in terms of responding to the needs of the people.
“One, we are the most densely populated municipality in the country; second we are the most commercial-oriented municipality and people are very aware, so bringing those services to the people’s doorsteps, the expectation are very high, and can be very difficult. Therefore, we need to collaborate with government and we hope that would be possible, but clearly after six years as being a mayor, I can see now that is a huge challenge. So I would say lack of cooperation from government is our biggest challenge.”
He also spoke about their plans to intervene in the development of more markets, sporting areas especially parks within the municipalities, but they don’t have access to titles to their own lands. This, he said, has made it impossible to bring about such robust developments.
The youngest mayor in the history of The Gambia, Mayor Bensouda reminded that since assuming office in 2018, he had undertaken series of initiatives aimed at improving the lives and livelihoods of the people of KM.
From education, market development, waste management, sports and arts and culture, just to name a few, evidences are there to prove this fact.
“The attestation of the job we did was proven in the last election in which we won with 54% of the votes that shows that the people of KMC are likely satisfied with the work we are doing. Of course, to date we are focusing heavily on Kanifing Road Network Project, which is the development of 16.4 kilometres of road and 5.9 kilometres drainage.”
Waste management
Mayor Bensouda also talked about the famous Kanifing Environmental Transformation Programme, which he said, has interventions in the creation of parks, education facilities such as the first municipal library, which is planned for inauguration in December 2024 and other water management initiatives.
Since he assumed office in 2018, the Council has managed to distribute street dust bins in many households within the municipality. This is part of a broader move to manage waste generated by municipality dwellers and even big industries.
“We had a round in which they gave out 2000 to households within the municipality and then 10,000. This project is an ongoing initiative as we also delivered another 800 earlier this year.”
With 25,000 compounds within the municipality, Mayor Bensouda spoke of their aspiration to ensure every compound gets a bin.
