Yet Another Oil Scandal: More Explanation Needed

The Independent (Banjul)
COLUMN
May 5, 2003
Posted to the web May 5, 2003

By D.A. Jawo
Banjul

It is about a month now since the regime was accused of being involved in
yet another oil scandal, the second since the advent of the second republic
and the third in the history of this country. However, apart from that far
from convincing rebuttal supposedly written by the Director of Press and
Public Relations, no further explanation seems to be coming forth. Of
course that was not sufficient to convince the economically hard hit
Gambians and therefore, the regime needs to give a more convincing
explanation of what actually transpired and why the contract was never made
public in the first place.

We can all vividly recall the great noise that the AFPRC Junta made in 1995
when it tumbled into some information regarding a contract between the
former PPP regime and the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for
the supply of crude oil at concessionary prices. It was therefore not
surprising when the Junta made a lot of capital from that information,
apparently as part of their efforts to discredit the former regime and
justify their take over of a democratically elected government. They even
had to spend quite a lot of money in their attempt to embarrass former
President Dawda Jawara and his regime, by sending delegations to places as
far away as Europe and South America in order to gather more incriminating
evidence about the deal. It was therefore not a surprise that at the
conclusion of the investigations, ex-President Jawara and some of his
alleged collaborators were found 'guilty' and ordered to pay back to the
government millions of Dollars, said to be the proceeds of the deal.

It was therefore quite surprising when barely a year later, the new APRC
regime, a forerunner of the AFPRC Junta was also accused of being involved
in a similar crude oil deal with the same Federal Republic of Nigeria,
personally involving President Jammeh and his best friend, the late
Nigerian dictator General Sanni Abacha.

Just like the 'Jawara deal', this one was also kept as a complete secret
from the people of The Gambia, and it was alleged that the proceeds were
paid into a personal bank account in Switzerland. Indeed one of the
principal players in that alleged transaction; a Senegalese with Gambian
family ties, Samuel Sarr even confirmed the existence of the foreign bank
account, although he would not disclose the account owner. However, despite
all the denials of complicity in the deal, the government of The Gambia
were eventually to pay millions of Dollars to satisfy a judgement delivered
in favour of one of the companies involved in the alleged deal by an
arbitration tribunal in Geneva. If indeed there was no such deal as the
regime and its apologists wanted us to believe, then one would wonder why
it had to pay such an amount.

In a subsequent interview with Neneh Macdouall of GRTS, President Jammeh
all but confirmed the existence of the deal, but he said the signatures
were forged. That indeed was quite ridiculous because in view of the fact
that the government had already paid a huge amount at the arbitration
tribunal to one of the companies involved in the deal, they also did
everything possible to ward off a popular call to set up a commission of
inquiry to investigate the matter. That alone was enough reason to convince
everyone that the government was indeed hiding the whole truth from them.

The regime succeeded in using its majority in the National Assembly and
other unconventional means to suppress calls for the allegations to be
investigated. Therefore, everyone would have thought that to have been
enough lesson for the regime never to get involved in another shady deal.

However, it appears that the whole game is being replayed all over again,
with people very close to President Jammeh being mentioned in this latest
oil scandal. With the economic hardship being experienced by most Gambians
on a daily basis, it would be extremely difficult this time round for the
government to convince the people that it has nothing to do with the
alleged disappearance of millions of Dollars worth of petroleum products
destined for this country.

Therefore, the rebuttal made by the regime against the allegations by the
UDP leader Ousainou Darbo and ThisDay newspaper of Nigeria seems to have
only succeeded in making the people crave for more explanation. The press
release issued by the State House acknowledging the existence of such a
contract between The Gambia and the Federal Republic of Nigeria only helped
to raise more questions than provided answers.

People are asking why despite all the monotonous coverage on radio and
television of President Jammeh's last visit to Nigeria, there was never any
mention of the oil contract. It was also never reflected in either the last
budget nor the one before it. One would therefore be compelled to ask
whether there was any particular motive for keeping the deal from the
public domain like a state secret.

The very fact that the transaction was never reflected in the budget at any
time makes it even more suspicious. It would be quite hard to convince the
people that they had to endure such a drastic rise in oil prices while this
country was supposed to have benefited from such a large supply of various
grades of refined petroleum products. Where did it all go to? Indeed people
are beginning to connect the flamboyant lifestyles led by President Jammeh
and some members of his regime with such unexplained deals.

People are wondering for instance where President Jammeh has been getting
all the money he has been using to purchase so many tractors and their
accessories, the sponsorship of several hundreds of people to perform the
Hajj, the frequent staging of Futampaf and other unsolicited cultural
jamborees at Kanilai as well as the numerous gifts of cash and other
materials he frequently makes. He certainly owes it to the people of this
country to tell them the sources of his wealth, otherwise, the people would
be compelled to speculate whether there is any connection with such
officially sanctioned deals.




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