Africa-Press – Gambia. ASSEMBLY SUMMONS HAMAT BAH OVER CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS AT GTBOARD The National Assembly Public Petition Committee has summoned Tourism Minister Hamat Bah to report today as part of their investigations into allegations of corruption at the Gambia Tourism Board. The National Assembly committee launched an enquiry following a petition by staff accusing the minister, the former director general and the finance director of various corrupt practices, including an award of contract for the construction of 5 eco-tourism lodges.
Minister Bah is expected to appear before the committee chaired by Foni Berefet NAM Sunkary Badjie this morning. A former GTB director general, Abdoulie Hydara is also expected to testify.
The officials will be asked to explain themselves with regard to the corruption allegations made in the contract process, wrongful land allocations within the TDA and abuse of power among others.
According to the workers, in their petition seen by The Standard, the board in 2018 invited bids for the construction of these lodges to be built across the regions and five companies namely; Lerr Group, Mendura Construction, BB Electrical & Construction, Peace Enterprise, Lamin Jatta Eco Construction, and Santa Yalla Construction Company took part in the bidding.
However, the petitioners alleged that the GT Board former director general Abdoulie Hydara and former director of finance Ousainou Senghore (now GIEPA’s CEO) engaged in “financial abuse” to “enrich themselves” when they awarded the contract to Lerr Group, which tendered at least D10 million higher than the rest of the bidders.
They further alleged that following a mass resistance against the awarding of the contract to Lerr Group, DG Hydara and finance director Senghore, aided by Minister Bah and his permanent secretary, Codou Jabang Senghore, used the Covid-19 situation to send the staff home with a salary cut and, in their absence, subsequently signed the contract with Lerr Group.
They also accused Minister Hamat Bah of unilaterally removing the board chairman, Abdoulie [Bax] Touray following his reception of the aggrieved staff’s allegations promising to look into them.
The staff further charged that they were surprised to hear Minister Bah announce at the launch of one of the Eco lodges in Sotuma that a total of D97 million was agreed with Lerr Group for the construction of the 5 lodges with an advanced payment of D38.5 million already made.
“The amounts on the letters from GTBoard, GPPA and the statement of the minister are conflicting and up to date, the actual contract signed with Lerr Group has been kept away from the staff. We see this action of the director of finance as gross financial misconduct because the signing of this contract and payment of D38.5 million to Lerr from GTBoard accounts did not follow proper financial and audit procedures. The director of finance had advised the contracts committee wrongly on the way they have evaluated the ecotourism projects and awarded the contract to Lerr Group on the basis that this contractor will pre-finance the project only to realise that this is not true,” the petitioners alleged.
On other allegations of corruption, the staff also accused Minister Bah of ‘dubiously’ cancelling out a contract agreement made in 2014 between the GT Board and Construct Company Limited.
“The agreement was for GTBoard to allocate the land to Construct Company and in return Construct Company to construct a head office complex for Gambia Tourism Board at Kololi next to the Jakarlo football field on the highway to Senegambia, now called the Tropics. “The office complex was supposed to house GTBoard and MoTC staff. However, sometime in 2018, when the Minister, the Permanent Secretary, the director general and the director of finance travelled abroad, they decided from there that GTBoard would no longer occupy the office complex but instead rented a place where the GT Board is currently located for D3,000,000.00 per annum. This decision shocked all GTBoard staff who up to today cannot understand why they are paying such an amount on rent when they could have easily moved into the Tropic Complex. Equally, no one could tell if the framework agreement with Construct Company still exists and there is rumour that the complex is now leased to Construct Company and the proceeds are shared between the Minister, PS, DG and Director of Finance,” the staff alleged. Minister Hamat Bah is also accused of intervening to waive 3 % from the levy supposed to be paid by Kaijiang Holding Group and allocation of land to MOAB Capital. These allocations and waivers have led to the loss of over $450,000 in revenue. Meanwhile the former Tourism Minister and Director General of the GT Board Benjamin Roberts testified before the commission on Friday regarding GTB agreement with Construct Limited made in 2014.
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