As part of our investigations as to how the criminal den of Gambian President Yahya Jammeh is mismanaging our tax funds, Fatu Radio today focuses on awarding of infrastructure projects to the President’s special friends and business fronts where large chunk of Gambia’s expenditure funds are spent. In 2013/14 fiscal year, the Gambia government claimed to have spent D1882.55 billion on infrastructure projects. This is one big area where the dictatorship in the Gambia has absolute control over and where it continues to commit fraud against the Gambian people.
Many of the infrastructure projects that the government include in the recurrent budgets have in fact been already funded years back. Such projects include construction of feeder roads, refurbishment of police and military barracks, refurbishment of public schools, hospitals, etc.
Investigations by Fatu radio showed that one of the reasons why the dictator has been engaged in spiral spending on infrastructure projects is basically to tighten his grip on the economy and on the unsuspecting populace.
Our investigations have established that Gambian President in particular uses as an opportunity the execution of high flying but hardly sustainable projects to award contracts to special friends and business fronts that engage in callous and sinister manipulation of the entire government procurement process through over pricing of materials and services charges, undercutting and devaluing quality standards.
Many of the so called companies will cease to exist immediately after executing a shady project and all the paper trace and transactions also disappear with them.
Last year, the auditor general in a rather scathing report on the expenditure culture largely criticized the government on chaotic manner in which contracts are awarded and how difficult it takes to trace some of the paperwork.
But what the auditor general failed to document is that many of the quarries should in fact lie at the door step of the Presidency and President Jammeh in particular.
