Africa-Press – Gambia. Abdoulie Colley, the current Registrar General of The Gambia, appeared before the National Assembly’s Special Select Committee investigating the sales and disposals of assets belonging to former President Yahya Jammeh.
During his testimony, Counsel Aji Sainey Kah questioned Mr. Colley on property title cancellations and the preservation of property history in the registry. She asked whether canceling a property title also erases its history and if that is an ideal practice, particularly when tracing properties.
“Especially in the situation that we are faced with right now, trying to trace these properties again,” she asked.
The Registrar General acknowledged that in the current situation, erasing the history of a property is not ideal, noting that transparency would be compromised. He explained that the proper approach would be to maintain a recital in the deed, which preserves the property’s historical record even after cancellation and reissuance.
“How would that be done? Would it be done through the recital of the deed? She asked.
Mr. Colley further elaborated that reentry occurs when a lease is reassigned—for instance, if a leaseholder breaches the conveyance or if the Minister of Lands decides to reclaim the land. In such cases, the previous lease is canceled, and a new lease is issued. He explained that once a lease is canceled and reentered, the previous record would conclude unless appropriately documented through recitals.
The Registrar General provided the committee with a list of 188 properties that he identified as belonging to former President Jammeh, compiled from both written manuals and the digital registry.
“You are certain that all of these properties belong to the former president?” Counsel Kah asked.
He confirmed that the history in the register indicated the former president as the last owner. “Yes, the history shows that in fact he is the last owner, as far as the register is concerned,” he said.
When asked whether the list might be incomplete, Mr. Colley acknowledged the possibility. He also clarified that the list was not derived from the Janneh Commission’s report.
Following a request by Counsel Kah, the committee approved a motion for Mr. Colley to cross-reference the Janneh Commission’s report and conduct an updated search, noting that the commission had identified approximately 288 properties. The witness has since undertaken this additional review.
Committee member Hon. Alhagie Mbowe questioned the witness on communications between the Registrar General’s office and the Ministry of Lands during property cancellations.
“When you receive such and then you cancel, do you communicate to lands or what actually happened? How do you guys communicate to ensure that you are all online because otherwise you may have to cancel something, and on their side, they might have it active, so how do you align with your work?” he asked.
Mr. Colley explained that cancellation requests are generally initiated by his office, but he acknowledged an irregularity in one instance where a memo came from Kimbeng Tah rather than the Ministry of Lands.
On the issue of digitization, Mr. Colley noted ongoing challenges in transitioning the deeds system to a digital platform.
“To be honest, maybe this is an opportunity for us to at least bring these things here so that one of the recommendations should be how to better digitize the deeds systems. Even though the policy is on the way, the Ministry of Lands is working on these land policies, and one of the recommendations is to have a digitization,” he answered.
He said a consultant initially developed the system, but funding and capacity constraints forced the government to terminate the contract and migrate the data, creating difficulties in maintaining an efficient digital registry. He described the situation as a common challenge for government IT systems.
“I think this is a common problem for the government, ITC; it is really a challenge,” he said.
Hon. Omar Jammeh asked whether the Ministry of Justice had disregarded court orders in managing the sales of Jammeh’s assets, citing examples of the Civil Litigation Director issuing instructions to the Registrar General’s office.
“I’ve given you an example where the civil litigation director was writing to the office of the registrar general, giving instructions,” he said.
Mr. Colley responded that the instructions were issued by the Deputy Director and described this as abnormal.
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