Africa-Press – Gambia. The board chairman of the Gambia Livestock Marketing Agency Ebrima Cham told the parliamentary committee investigating the sale of former president Jammeh’s assets that some of the prices recorded by the Janneh Commission to have been the prices of the cattle they sold, did not reflect the true values of the animals.
Mr Cham further accused the Janneh Commission officials involved in the sale of the cattle, of “blindfolding” his agency from not taking records of the tagging and valuation prior to sales, so that they (the Janneh Commission), could “fake records.”
Cham also disputed the testimony of Alhaji Mamadi Kurang, a former executive secretary of the Janneh Commission who claimed that the GLMA participated in the valuation of estimation of prices for the cattle before they were sold.
He alleged that during the tagging exercise, Mr Kurang insisted that it was not the job of the GLMA, but the Janneh Commission, to keep records.
The witness was given a list of cattle from the Janneh Commission report which were valued and sold for various prices. One cow, a female weighing 40 kilo, was sold for D7200.
When asked to explain how this price was determined, Mr Cham said such an amount cannot be true. “I don’t know how those cattle were valued and for me I am highly surprised about how and where they got this from. This was never undertaken on the ground and I am not aware of any weight estimation, or determination of the sexes of the cattle that have taken place. So I don’t know how these things were generated. And not all the animals were tagged during our tagging exercise,” Cham told the inquiry.
He said he now understands why his agency was prevented from taking records of the tagging exercise across Jammeh’s farms in Kanilai, Farato and Banjulinding.
“We were blindfolded for a purpose. It is very shocking and sad. It seems that the assignment given to us to price the cattle without determining the weight was purposeful- to blindfold us. This is really baffling. We think they did not want us to have records for safe keeping but not knowing that it was done for a purpose. I could not imagine that a commission of inquiry seeking the truth could do such a thing-fake records and do dubious things like this,” Cham alleged.
According to him even a two- year old cow could not weigh 40 kilo.
Following his submission, the counsel for the enquiry put it to Cham that Kurang had said it was GLMA that placed monetary value on the cattle which he is seemingly disputing.
Cham replied: “We did not estimate the weight of any single animal. That does not make sense. In this subregion, animals are not sold based on weight. How can you weigh 500 heads of cattle? Animals were running about and moreover not all animals were tagged,” he said.
Cham said he only recalled during the exercise that D11,000 was attached as value to all suckling cattle while D15,000 was the price tag for big cattle.
The witness also rejected Mr Kurang’s testimony that the agency was considering the meat value to price the cattle. “We cannot even do that. It is not practical. And how would you calculate that because if you slaughtered a cow you separate fillet, steak, meat and bone. How do you calculate all those components?”, the witness asked
When showed a female cow estimated in the records to have weighed 8 kilos and priced at D1440, the livestock chairman said: “Even a dog weighs more than that. That is the weight of a cat, so it is not possible. In fact, that is the price for a small goat, and even that you will have to go up country to get it for that price,” Cham said.
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