The president of the Far North Regional Council Daniel Kalbassou has been under fire since last December when he postponed sine die the session of the Council devoted to the adoption of the budget for the year 2023.

Councillors in response , have written to the governor of the region to inform him that on 17 January, they intend to hold an extraordinary session of the Council, the purpose of which will be to dismiss the president. In this letter, the councillors list about fifteen grievances against their president, the first of which is “the failure to convene ordinary sessions, particularly the one devoted to examining and voting on the budget in accordance with the General Code of Decentralised Local Authorities, and moreover, no budget orientation session has been held since his election.

“The budget session was postponed because of funding. We were promised the release of funds a month ago, but we are still waiting . We were told at the Ministry of Finance to wait a few more days,” Daniel Kalbassou defends himself in the columns of the newspaper L’Oeil du Sahel of Monday 9th January 2023.

According to the newspaper, the Councillors are not digesting this dismissal of the most important session of the Council, especially since, a few weeks before, the Regional Council organised the “Far North Business Week” forum, which was supposed to promote the region’s assets and attract investors. The results were mixed: “Imagine that the budget session he convened was postponed to a later date without us knowing the reasons,” says a councillor quoted by the newspaper.

The regional president says he is aware of this charge by the councillors. However, the senior official does not intend to change course. “I know the reasons for everything that is done there. People want money, they want projects. When you don’t give it to them, they become your enemies. We have much more important goals,” he says.