By Yankuba Jallow
Dr Njogu Bah, former Secretary-General and Head of Civil Services in the former regime of Yaya Jammeh, Wednesday June 27th 2018, reappeared before the ‘Janneh’ Commission and told Commissioners that he was not the desk officer for Gam Petroleum Company, at the Office of the former President.
Dr Bah made of these and other assertions before the Commission of Inquiry, that is probing into the Assets and Financial Dealings of Ex-President Yaya Jammeh, members of his family and close associates, on issues relating to the Gam Petroleum Storage Facility at Mandinary village.
Dr. Bah was asked by Counsel Bensouda to explain the issues surrounding the letter he wrote, signed and addressed to the General Manager of Gam Petroleum, to open up 49% of the Company’s shares to Government and other public enterprises such as GNPC, Social Security, GPA, amongst others. According to Counsel Bensouda the letter further indicated that the Gambia was entering into a bilateral cooperation which has implications for fuel storage facilities. Counsel Bensouda indicated that the letter directed that storage facilities should not be purely handled by private enterprises to facilitate the implementation of the bilateral cooperation; that Government is required to have a share or ownership of the storage facilities; thus the directive from the former Government to give 49% shares to Government and public enterprises.
In his response, Dr Bah said the letter was written by him at the time he was the Permanent Secretary at the Office of the former President; that there was information contained in a file given to him for a directive to be written to the General Manager of Gam Petroleum, to make 49% available to public enterprises including Government; that in the directive sent to Gam Petroleum, it was indicated that there was a bilateral cooperation that requires the participation of Government para-statals.
Dr Bah said he was assigned to write to the General Manager of Gam Petroleum and minute the letter to the President; but that this does not make him the desk officer of the Company.
Momodou O.S. Badjie, former Managing Director of the Gambia National Petroleum Company (GNPC), reappeared before Commissioners to shed light on issues relating to the Gambia Petroleum Storage Facility at Mandinary. Badjie said he received a directive from the Office of the former president that 49% of shares will be made available to public enterprises; that it was indicated in the directives that GNPC should take 9%, GPA 10% and Social Security 30%; but that he wrote to the Office of the former president that they were going for 7%.
Sittings continue on Monday July 2nd 2018, at 10 am prompt.
