Pointe-à-Pitre (AFP)
The mayor of Pointe-à-Pitre, Jacques Bangou, suspected of mismanagement of his commune, resigned Saturday, said the website outremers 360, letter of the edile in support, where he denounces the return to "practices authoritarian "state.
A note sent this week to the Ministers of the Interior and Overseas, signed the prefect of Guadeloupe, recommended "to continue the procedure leading to the decree of revocation" Jacques Bangou.
A procedure against him was triggered on May 13 due to a deficit of 78 million euros from the municipality, noted by the Regional Chamber of Accounts (CRC). Such revocation procedures are extremely rare.
Mr. Bangou will remain a city councilor, he says.
In a letter to residents and municipal staff, he announced that he had sent the prefect his resignation as mayor "to try to preserve (the) city of the incessant blows to him".
The one who is also chairman of the PPDG (Progressive and Democratic Guadeloupean Party) claims to be "confronted with an established will to dismiss it for political ends". "My resignation strongly denounces the return of the state to authoritarian practices that we have known well before decentralization," he adds.
Mr. Bangou intends by his resignation "to overcome the tensions with the State, and create the conditions for a partnership work finally leading to the truth of the accounts".
In Guadeloupe, the CRC regularly pinpoints municipalities and public bodies for their mismanagement of public money. Nearly two-thirds of communes are located in the alert zone of the local finance alert network, according to a document revealed by the daily FA Guadeloupe in May.
The revocation procedure is based on the general code of local authorities: the mayor and deputies may be suspended by a reasoned ministerial decree, for a period that may not exceed one month, or be revoked by decree taken in the Council of Ministers.
© 2019 AFP