By Amara Thoronka
Governor of the Central Bank of Gambia, Buah Saidy, has vowed that the Bank would take appropriate legal actions to defend its reputation following a recent allegation that an employee of the bank, Abdou Ceesay, was involved in a transaction to exchange the sum of D155 million of old and mutilated notes into new notes.
The allegation further contains that another D11.1 million was paid to the said employer of the Central Bank upon his request to be distributed to some staff of the bank to facilitate the exchange.
Bank Governor Buah Saidy disclosed that upon receiving a letter from the lawyer of one Ansumana Bah, who claimed to have paid a D11.1 million bribe to the said staff of the bank to facilitate the said exchange, he (the Governor) went into action by summoning a board meeting and interrogate the staff in question on the said allegation.
“We asked our staff Mr. Abdou Ceesay whether he received or know anything about the said money; he denied ever receiving or being aware of such transaction. After the meeting, the board of the bank decided to send Mr. Ceesay on leave pending the conclusion of police investigation on the said allegations.”
The Bank Governor emphasized that they will definitely take action upon the conclusion of the police investigation to clear the image of the bank.
It could be recalled that upon conclusion of preliminary investigation last week, Police disclosed that the claim by a group of people that they have handed over D155 million of mutilated notes to a Central Bank staff for change into new notes was false and a mere scam.
According to the police preliminary investigation, Ansumana Bah and others were said to have had an engagement with an ‘criminal group’ which persuaded them to form a charitable organization in order to access funding from certain unidentified philanthropist overseas.
As a way to grab the opportunity, Ansumana Bah and Co speedily established “Jamma Charitable Foundation” to attract the said fund.
The police added that the ffraudsters made them believe that their charitable organisation had secured a £2.5 million funding from a philanthropist in UK to commence charitable operation in The Gambia.
The fraudsters are said to have convince Bah and Co that the funds were smuggled into the country and put in boxes and kept safely in one of the houses of the partners in The Gambia; adding that the said British Pounds were converted into local currencies equivalent to D155 million partly mutilated which needed to be changed to new notes at the Central Bank; saying that some workers in the bank were asking for D11.1 million bribe to be paid through one Abdou Ceesay.
The police preliminary investigation also disclosed that Ansumana Bah and Co did not have any interface with the bank officials throughout their encounter with the fraudsters, revealing that some members of the swindlers were impersonating as bank officials to lure the foundation members to believe the process.
The said police preliminary investigation emphasized that neither Ansumana nor any of the foundation members had seen the £2.5 million nor the D155 million during the course of the entire transaction; meaning they blindly believed in the words of the scammers in question.
