By Fatou Sowe
Momodou O.S Badjie, the former Managing Director of Gambia National Petroleum Corporation GNPC has appeared for the second time before the commission of inquiry probing into the financial activities of former President Jammeh.
He informed the commission that $5, 000, 000 was withdrawn from GNPC account and paid towards the construction of the AU Villas and this happened prior to his appointment as MD.
He said after the summit 30 out of the 52 villas were sold at the tune of $110, 000 each and 18 villas were handed over to Government while 4 were given to GNPC.
According to him, GNPC generated $3,800,000 from the sale of the 30 villas while the outstanding balance of $1, 200, 000 was never recovered, but it was written off base on the approval by the board of Directors.
While commenting on the transactions with regard to monies paid to Jammeh Foundation for Peace JFP and Kanilai Family Farms KFF he said these transactions were made prior to his appointment.
With regard to electrification of the AU Villa, Badjie informed Commissioners that Dabanani had a contract for the electrification of the AU Villa Street lights and the money was paid from GNPC funds. According to him, the sum of $1,595,952 is the outstanding sums PEGEP owed to GNPC.
Mr. Badjie testified that when he was appointed as MD in 2008 he found that former director wrote for the recovery of the money but there was no respond on the situation at that time. He added that since they were not able to recover the debt, he had no choice but to write it off.
Badjie further testified that initially when he was appointed as MD there was no interference with the affairs of GNPC from the office of the president but later in 2013 the interference started and it was after he wrote to the office of the former president soliciting for some of their revenues to be treated as grants.
Government has not given them subvention and all the revenue of the Company (now Corporation) were funds of GNPC. He however acknowledged the fact that the sum of $5,000,000 was given to them by Central Bank for Data Acquisition and not for fuel importation.
Mr. Badjie acknowledge that CBG is still entitled to pursue the loan given to GNPC but he has not seen any document concerning that.
Mr. Ebrima Sallah, Managing Director of Trust Bank Gambia Limited also reappeared before the Janneh Commission and testified about the transactions that were done at the GNPC dollar account with his bank.
Nuha Touray, former Secretary to Cabinet also reappeared before the Commission for the third time in connection to a $2 million cash withdrawal he made at the GNPC account at Skye Bank.
He revealed that the bank couldn’t assemble the sum of $2,000,000 which was requested by the signatories to the account, Momodou Sabally and ex-President Jammeh but Jammeh threatened to close the account if they fail to produce the sum requested.
However, he said he did not know the purpose of the money. Commission sittings will resume on Monday.
