Mass arrest at Gambia National Lottery

Assembly revelation

The arrests came just one week after the speaker of the National Assembly ordered the National Audit Office to audit The Gambia National Lottery Company (GNLC) from inception in 1996 to date.

At the Assembly’s January 17th, 2014 Monday meeting where GNL officials and other shareholders were invited for consultation on the status quo of the Lottery, Hon. Speaker Abdoulie Bojang put it to the officials that the Public Accounts Committee and Public Enterprises Committees (PAC/PEC) of the National Assembly has the mandate to scrutinise the agency that is owned by the people. 

He said the Banjul City Council, the Brikama Area Council and the Kanifing Municipal Council [that created the company] are institutions owned by the people, thus they should be answerable to the people. 

At the said meeting, the lord mayor of Banjul, Abdoulie Bah, explained that when he took office on the 24th of April, 2013, there was no handing-over as far as GNLC is concerned. He told PAC/PEC that after a month or two, he received information that BCC is a shareholder of GNLC.

Bah said he had requested for a file to determine the Council’s position, but noted that no document was available to indicate that there was a handing-over as there were no files in place.

The mayor told the members that he went on to call the director of Finance at GNLC to give him an explanation, as he didn’t know anything about GNLC since his assumption as the city’s mayor. 

The clerk of the House, Dodou C.M. Kebbeh, it would be recalled, told the meeting that the GNLC is among public enterprises that were written to since last year to appear before the PAC/PEC. 

“Initially, they have been writing back to the clerk of the House informing my office that they are not supposed to appear, which they kept on insisting until they [Assembly] eventually found out that even those responses from the management were unauthorised,” he said.

The former director of GNLC, Ousman Njie at the meeting, informed that he took the matter to the Board of directors concerning the appearance to the PAC/PEC. He said at the Board meeting, they concluded that they have limited liabilities, which make them not obliged to appear before PAC/PEC.

The acting managing director of GNLC, Mam Dagain Tambedou, was also present to clarify certain critical issues pertaining to the operations of the Company.