President Adama Barrow has for the first time spoken about the 35 million dalasis money that landed into the First Lady’s foundation’s account in 2017 only for the money to disappear from the account.
Chinese electromechanical manufacturer TBEA paid 700,000 dollars into the account of the First Lady’s foundation in December 2017 but mystery has since surrounded the money and Gambians have been relentless in knowing what happened to the money.
While speaking to NPP reporters at State House, President Barrow explained: “We tried to travel to China. We asked for plane cost but the cheapest was one company in Portugal which was 700,000 dollars. Where would Gambia government get that money? And that was a very important trip. It was in that trip we signed the all these bridges and the Basse roads. We got that money from that China trip.
“We were searching all of us including the secretary regarding where we could get a plane. I travelled to China twice. It was the Qatar government that gave me a plane in one of the trips. We had searched everywhere.
“So this one too we searched everywhere and one day I was in a meeting when the secretary general knocked the door. He came in and told me the China issue had been solved. I asked him is it solved, he said it is solved, that there is someone who will finance it.
“In the afternoon, he came to me and said those people said they will send the money in cash form. He said it cannot be paid into the consolidated fund account and the money needs to be paid in that weekend and asked what we are going to do. We brainstormed as to which personal account we could use or which businessman’s account we could use. I told him let’s see if we could use the First Lady’s foundation’s account. Dawda Fadera coordinated it.
“He spoke with the First Lady’s foundation and they transferrred the money there. When the money landed into that account, it was a bank transfer that was made directly to Portugal. And the purpose was there… To hire a plane for the president and the delegation. All of us where in that delegation. Ousainou Darboe was in that delegation, Amadou Sanneh was in that delegation and all these people were in that delegation and all of us knew about it.”
TBEA has since won a bid from the Gambia government through NAWEC for a transmission infrastructure project worth over one billion dalasis.
