By Kebba AF Touray
General Manager of Gam Petroleum, Mr. Yero Jallow Thursday, 22August 2024, told the joint committee that he came to know about the petroleum product saga from reports and the information that he had received after he assumed office.
He said: “What I know from that saga, was that petroleum products were found to be missing, as claimed by the owners.”
Jallow made these statements while appearing before the joint committee on Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) and Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) and testified in the ongoing inquiry into the issue of petroleum products.
The said product is valued at the tune of 36,935.614 metric tons, valued at US$30 Million (approximately two billion dalasi).
The joint committee is tasked to do the inquiry involving allegations of bribery, and tax evasion by Apogee FZC, Creed Energy Limited, and Ultimate Beigee Logistics, on the sale of the said product.
Testifying before the joint committee, Mr. Yero Jallow, the General Manager of Gam Petroleum, told the joint committee that when the fuel saga occurred at Gam Petroleum in 2021, he was recommended to take charge of the entity, given his qualifications, experience, and expertise in oil and gas field.
“I was then appointed General Manager on the 25th of January 2022. That was when I assumed the responsibilities of managing the institution. That was when the missing stock saga happened at the institution in October 2021,” he said.
The committee asked him to state what the stock was, and he replied that the petroleum stock was kept at the terminal.
At this stage, he was asked by the committee, to explain to the joint committee about his knowledge of the saga.
He said the information he has further shows that there was a task force that was set up by the Office of the President, chaired by the then Minister of Trade, and the task force produced a report which stated that some stocks were missing, and the value was somewhere around US$30 Million.
The said value he told the committee is what Gam Petroleum was supposed to pay, or else face being taken to court and the deadline to pay that money was given as 15th March 2022.
He said: “So, it was the situation I found myself in when I took over”.
He told the joint committee that the copy of the said report was in his office when they requested the Minister to provide them with the copy.
At this juncture, he was asked to provide a copy of the report to the committee, to which he agreed to make the copy available to the joint committee.
His roles as General Manager, he said, among others include the general management of the institution, which provides a storage facility and is meant to provide storage services to the depositors of petroleum products.
The committee asked him about the location of the institution, to which he said the institution is located in Mandinary, West Coast Region.
He said that since his appointment in 2022, he has been serving at the institution and that by the end of 2024, he will mark three years at the entity.
He said that when he took over, the entity was not functioning as expected, in terms of structure and proper maintaining of documents.
“I have to really organize that institution and set things in the proper perspectives. So, I did not have the luxury to come and see the records, files, and everything. It was not a straightforward matter as people may think,” he lamented.
He was asked whether he was asked to just move to Gam Petroleum or whether he was asked to apply for the position of GM at the institution. He added that at the time of the saga, he was working at the GNPC as one of the Senior Managers.
He replied that it was a recommendation that was made to the board, and the board invited him for an interview. During the interview, he also submitted his credentials, and after the interview, the appointment was made.
The committee asked “Who recommends to the board for your appointment and who appointed you?
He said, “I was told that the recommendation came from the Office of the President. The board appointed me”.
Asked who the shareholders of Gam Petroleum were and their respective shares, he told the committee that the shareholders are GPA, SSHFC, Finance Ministry, and GNPC as public corporations that have shares, and 25 percent of the shares are owned by Star Oil Group, “the shareholders are all institutional shareholders”.
He said that the remaining 75 percent is owned by the said public service corporations combined.
On what happened to his previous job at the GNPC, he informed the committee that the prior position was vacant for some time and was later filled by someone.
He was requested by the committee to provide the documentation as to how the 25 percent shares of the Star Oil Group Oil evolved, adding that when he was asked to explain that evolution, he told the committee that he assumed at a time when the said percentage is being held by the Star Oil Group.
Explaining the evolution of the institution, he said, it would require him to go through the records and provide the needed information.
He was also asked to provide documentation on the breakdown of the 75 percent of the shares of Gam Petroleum which is owned by public service corporations.
