Yaya Jammeh became a businessman around 1997 or thereabout. A prominent Gambian businessman and his Lebanese partners open a new company under the watchful eye of Yaya Jammeh. The said company started importing fuel products into the country around 1998. This company operates under the same name ever since under an exclusivity regime, which expired this year and is recently extended to 2016. No one knows if this company pays import duties and sales taxes and income tax for its operations? No government official dares ask questions to this company. The same company shareholders with government minority shareholding built the Mandinary Fuel depot and a tanker landing strip where tankers unload their cargo without the presence of Gambian authorities. At times even local company staff are ask to go home whiles the ships unload. There are no statistics available for the Mandinary fuel depot operations.
Logic dictates that there are a lot covert operations couple with tax exemption certificates accorded to this company that operates purely commercial basis whiles generating profits and distributing dividends to its shareholders. It is important to mention at this point that no other fuel importing company (Shell, Castle, Elton etc.) benefit from tax exemptions. It is therefor imperative that the above mention company even if government is a shareholder therein does pay taxes on its commercial operations. Development certificates should only be accorded to the building cost of the depot. The fuel importing company is therefor liable to pay taxes, duties and income tax as any other for all fairness. However the above two companies are UNTOUCHABLES thanks to their close business relationship with Yaya Jammeh.
On the electricity front, there are two power plants built in the Brikama area, one is own by Nawec and the other owned by the same Lebanese partners this time without the Gambian partner. The one owned by the Lebanese has been recently handed over to Nawec and the reason for doing so might be link to cover up past tax evasions and or financial difficulties due to Jammeh’s constant unreasonable demand for monies from the Lebanese group. It is rumored that these Lebanese business partners are about to leave the country as they complain a lot that they cannot satisfy Jammeh’s insatiable appetite for money. They are slowly and secretly winding up and along way engaged in a reckless hunt for loans, overdraft and other banking facilities from local banks. The local banks are hereby warned seriously that they stand a very high risk of bad debts in extending banking facilities to this Lebanese group.
These Lebanese are known to be migrant business people and can easily disappear in thin air leaving the local banks in serious financial distress. They are already owing the four major local banks billions of dalasi (about 200 million dollars) in banking facilities and have deposited hundreds of millions dalasi of Nawec post dated cheques against fresh facilities. This Lebanese group has very little physical assets and can easily abandon the country putting local banks in great financial difficulties at the detriment of depositors.
Already some of the banks have not met the recapitalization requirement from the Central Bank and risk being in receivership administration.
Once again we implore the IMF, the World Bank and the EU to probe into the business activities of the above mention companies to ascertain the scope and magnitude of tax losses due government. It is in the billions of dalasi. It is not fair that all other businesses and entities pay regular taxes and some under harassments and over taxation whiles the above companies go tax-free just because Jammeh the president is the godfather.
We will dwell on the Kanilai group of companies in our next write up.
source: http://www.freedomnewspaper.com/Homepage/tabid/36/newsid367/9664/IT-IS-HIGH-TIME-THE-IMF-THE-WORLD-BANK-AND-THE-EU-TO-COMMISSION-A-TAX-ENQUIRY-INTO-JAMMEHS-NUMEROUS-BUSINESS-ACTVITIES---------------------------/Default.aspx