Inherited debts hamper Idenau Mayor’s plans

The huge debts of close to FCFA 300 million inherited by Mayor Tonde Lifanje Gabriel, is the main reason why development has been slow during this first year of my mandate, the Mayor says.

In a chat with The Sun at his office on Friday, November 6, Mayor Tonde Gabriel said they could not engage in new projects, since there were still many contractors that had to be settled, thus their main focus, was diverted from all that they had in mind to pay the debts owed.

“We had a lot in mind for this year, but before entering this office, we inherited close to FCFA 300 million debts and instead of us to engage in following new projects, we thought that it was better for us to first of all gradually pay the debts, since some of the projects were realised since 2009”.

Also, another reason for the low output according to the Mayor has been the difficulty in raising local revenue. “This year has not been a very good year for us because we have two main sources of raising local revenue; we have the beach where we have our main economic activity. For the past six months or so, we have not been having fish, so the whole sector is down; even many fish dealers don’t come here any longer to buy fish. Things have been really slow”.

Another revenue source according to the Mayor is the wharf, but it has not be functional for a while, due to government’s decision to close borders as a strategy to keep the country safe from the Ebola Virus. “The State decided to close borders and it became difficult for us to collect even FCFA 20,000 a week; there was no movement, the whole place was deserted”.

In-spite of these difficulties however, the Mayor says there were some achievements. “We have done some little projects and we can say we have not lost the whole year. The first achievement is ensuring that there is peace; we have peace between the council and the people. We also have a cordial relationship between the executives and the council.

We have a structure beside the police post, where we use to have some containers along that road, but we decided to clear them off and construct some stores, we are hopeful the building will be completed before the year runs out”.

Mayor Tonde Gabriel continues that “We also did grading of some roads, but with heavy rains, it is difficult to see that the roads were graded, because the seawall has been watched off and there are some pod-holes. But since we work for the interest of our electorates, it has to be done again”.

Another achievement the Mayor noted was the successful holiday football tournament which brought together a host of youth.

In an optimistic manner, the Mayor urged the people not to loss hope but remain expectant as a lot of things are in the pipeline. “This is the very first year of my mandate, and considering what we have started along the streets, I want to say that the people should count on us. We are here to make sure that Idenau becomes a town, a dreamland for investment. We are still working” he said.