By Yankuba Jallow
A series of damning revelations at the Local Government Commission of Inquiry has exposed deep-rooted administrative dysfunction and financial irregularities at the Banjul City Council (BCC), spanning from 2018 through 2023, with senior officials admitting to serious lapses in oversight and blatant violations of procurement laws.
At the center of the inquiry is Mustapha Batchilly, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BCC, whose tenure has come under intense scrutiny over systemic violations of procurement procedures, failure to follow due process, and management decisions that led to the alleged harassment and suspension of staff. Facing questions from Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez during a tense session on July 7, Batchilly appeared evasive, uncertain, and at times unapologetic about his role in the procurement failures that plagued the Council under his leadership.
A letter from Mayor Rohey Malick Lowe to Batchilly in April 2021 catalogued serious allegations: attempts to bribe a senior procurement official, Ida Njie, to sign a fake contract committee meeting resolution, harassment, and an indefinite suspension with half salary—all allegedly for allowing the Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) to conduct its mandatory audit. “These are serious allegations,” Gomez told Batchilly. “And they are in violation of our work ethics and code of conduct.”
Batchilly claimed he could not remember whether he had formally replied to the mayor’s letter but confirmed that discussions had taken place. “I’m not really at this juncture too sure about that,” he said haltingly.
But the mayor’s letter was not an isolated complaint. Witnesses including Sankung Fatty, a procurement specialist, had earlier flagged what they called “unprofessional observations of procurement procedures” at BCC, alleging that the Finance Director bypassed the procurement unit, directly negotiated with suppliers, and failed to respect basic rules. In his letter to Batchilly dated February 2018—prior to Lowe’s mayoralty—Fatty warned that these violations could damage both the Council’s and his own professional reputation. “Procurement must and should follow best practice in line with international standards,” he wrote.
Yet procurement violations remained the norm, not the exception.
Gomez confronted Batchilly directly: “How would you convince the commission that this was not a deliberate act to bypass procurement?” Batchilly responded that Fatty was not a qualified procurement officer, but Gomez swiftly dismissed the justification: “That’s not a reason. You don’t have the powers as CEO to bypass procurement.”
Repeated violations were flagged in successive compliance reviews by the GPPA for 2019 and 2020. The reviews outlined extensive misuse of single-source procurement methods, the absence of open tenders, and unapproved contracts amounting to millions of dalasis. In 2019 alone, 318 procurement transactions were recorded, with only one restricted tender and a staggering 266 done via single sourcing, none of which were approved by the contracts committee—a direct contravention of Section 49 of the GPPA Act.
Some of these included:
QuickBooks software (D266,000) — no approval, single source
Swimming uniforms (D40,800) — improper procedure
Air ticket to Nairobi via Sinereba Travels (D276,768) — wrong method
Restructuring consultancy by UXL Group (D382,500) — non-compliant method
Mayor Lowe acknowledged seeing these reports but admitted the council never tabled them as agenda items for deliberation. “It was not tabled at council level,” she said. “But all the councillors were copied.” Still, the CEO confirmed that he was never invited by the council to answer questions on either the 2019 or 2020 compliance reports.
Gomez stressed that such inaction undermined oversight. “Council must act,” he said, “but what we have seen is council failing to act.” He noted that the 2020 report repeated the same issues: D21 million in procurement with 368 transactions, mostly single source, and only one restricted tender.
Mayor Lowe, at several points, blamed weak institutional structures and limited authority over the CEO. “Mr. Batchilly knew that I cannot remove him, promote or demote him,” she told the Commission. “So obviously, if he does not reply to me, I have no other options.”
When asked why the council didn’t press harder to discipline Batchilly or seek action from the Local Government Service Commission, Lowe said: “We did more than that.” But when probed for council minutes or resolutions taken in response to the GPPA findings, she could not provide any, promising instead to “find out.”
The inquiry also uncovered that some procurement activities were influenced by delegations associated with the mayor. A contract to Bassen Enterprise for D662,156 involved invoice collection by individuals who traveled with Lowe to Ostend, Belgium. Though the Commission made clear there was no evidence the mayor herself took part in procurement, the implication of her delegation was noted.
In a striking moment, Gomez laid bare the magnitude of the failures: “Every year, the same problems are repeated. So where is the problem?” Mayor Lowe responded: “This is purely administration. But yes, we also failed.”
The Commission Chairperson, Ajaratou Jainaba Bah, confronted Batchilly with audit findings from the EU-funded Banjul-Ostend Project, showing D31.1 million in expenditures with no supporting documentation on file, despite repeated requests. Batchilly responded that by the time the report was finalized, he was no longer in office.
Bah noted that issues raised in the Ostend audit echoed those in the 2019 and 2020 GPPA reports—clear evidence, she argued, of systemic failures. “Triple expenditures were made on issues that had already been highlighted in audit reports,” she said.
Despite these revelations, no evidence was provided that the council took decisive action in response to the audit findings or passed any resolutions compelling accountability. Both the mayor and the CEO admitted that these reports—despite their gravity—were not properly tabled, scrutinized, or acted upon.
“This should not happen at all if there was capacity,” Mayor Lowe said. “The internal audit should have flagged this.”
Lead Counsel Gomez disagreed. “The reports I am addressing now,” he emphasized, “are ones that have been prepared and submitted to council. Council had access to them. For those, there are no excuses.”
In one of the most damning conclusions, Gomez asked Lowe directly: “Do you agree that the mayor and council failed every year to ensure these problems were not repeated?” Lowe replied: “Yes.”
The Local Government Commission of Inquiry is mandated to conduct a full and impartial investigation into the financial and administrative activities of local government councils from May 2018 to January 2023.
