The Western Rural District Council has erupted again after ten of its 14 councillors passed a vote no confidence on the chairman of the council Alieu Badara Mansaray.
According to one of the councillors Samuel Billie Kanu, who supported the no confidence vote, they held an extraordinary meeting on New Year’s eve and that 11 councillors were present while the chairman Alieu Badara Mansaray was absent.
He said the meeting was called by the chief administrator Alhaji A Bangura and they formed a quorum even when three councillors were absent.
Councillor Kanu said they took the decision because they discovered a lot of irregularities perpetrated by the chairman.
He said the chairman had not been calling meetings regularly and that this had affected the running of the council.
“On the whole the chairman has been keeping vital information about the running of the council to himself especially NaCSA’s activities,” the councillor related, adding that, “we are tired of him and we want him off the seat.”
In a counterattack Alieu Badara Mansaray stated that, “they have to prove my guilt…no vote of confidence is valid because it was not done according to the procedural directives of the Local Government Council Act of 2004”.
He said the meeting was not called by him which was a flaw, and that the appeal against him should be done in a letter and presented to the minister of Local Government who in turn would present it to the Chief Justice who would appoint a committee to investigate him.
“Only when I am found culpable would I be dismissed from office but until then I am the chairman of the council,” Mr Mansaray stated.
He described the vote of no confidence as a “political manipulation” from the outside of the council geared at persecuting him.
“If this judgment was formed within my council I would have bowed out honorably,” said the council chair.
He said he was carrying on with his developmental projects and key among them was the building of the largest library in Sierra Leone and even West Africa, facilitated by waterloo partnership and waterloo indigenes living in Liverpool.
When asked if he would run for chairmanship in the forthcoming Local Government elections he said, “when the National Electoral Commission announces the date for nominations then I will make my announcement”