There have been attestations by earlier witnesses that councillors have been engaged in shady matters. Mr Touray’s testimony did not come as an astonishment but rather a confirmation.
Witness Touray testified that during one of their council meetings, a few councillors like Omar Garry and others informed their colleagues that they should not be directly collecting revenue from the people. He added that the reason they gave was the revenue collectors should be empowered to do the collection and dismissed if they could not.
Mr Touray said the other councillors did not support this idea and a decision was reached to stop councillors from collecting revenue in the Basse administrative area.
The witness said the problem of revenue collection was mainly due to the attitude of the revenue collectors and the ineffective supervisory role of the finance unit of the Basse Area Council.
