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Gambia: More Testimonies in the Trial of Maimuna Taal

Two more prosecution witnesses namely, Abdoulie Jammeh and Howsoon Semega Janneh were last Wednesday, April 4th, the latest to testify in the economic crimes trial of Maimuna Taal, Former Directress General of The Gambia Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).

Messrs. Jammeh and Janneh are Director Generals of GCAA and Acting Director General of The Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA) respectively. Testifying before Justice S.M Monageng at the High Court, 38 year old Mr. Jammeh said that he has worked for the GCAA for 10 years at different capacities.

He told the court that he has worked with the accused person and in August 2005 he was acting on her behalf as Director General while she was on an official mission outside The Gambia.

Jammeh said that he remembered signing contracts for the rehabilitation of senior staff quarters, adding that he signed them based on the approval of the contract committee. The contract he said was approved by the Director General, Taal, which he read on the contract minutes.

"Usually," Jammeh said, he does not sign contracts when the Director General is present, and he did so this time due to her absence. He attested that he worked under the Director General's Office which was part of the contract committee, but played no role apart from signing it in the absence of his boss.

Currently, he said, he is a member of the airport improvement project since April 2006, "But always" acted as project manager at different times in the past.

Under cross-examination with Antouman Gaye, counsel for the defence, the GCAA Deputy Director General agreed that he was receiving allowances when he acted as project manager. All other members of the contract committee according to Mr. Jammeh received allowances including the accused person. Pursued by the defence if anything unusual happened, he responded, "It was perfectly in order."

Also appearing in the same hearing, Mr. Semega Janneh said he is currently serving as Director General of GPPA which is mandated to monitor the procurement activities of Departments of States, Public Enterprises and Local Government Authorities. The Civil Aviation body GCAA he said, is a public enterprise and falls under their mandate.

The procuring organisation Janneh said has to meet the requirement of the act, which stipulated different methods of procurement tenders.

When procuring more than one million dalasis according to him, the GPPA needs to approve every stage of the procurement. Janneh told the court that there is nothing in records at the GPPA regarding the procurement of contracts on the Director General's official residence, the flight safety manager's/residence, the engineering manager's residence and the VIP lounge at the airport. He said that there is no record of procurement of a contract for the air traffic control manager's residence.

The GPPA, he said by statue is to ensure compliance with procurement laws; the GPPA Act and Regulations. It also ensures detecting of fraud and other malpractices and generates transparency and accountability in public procurement. He added that there is no assessment to see whether the civil aviation contract's value for money.

In a brief cross-examination by the defence, Mr. Janneh said that there is no penalty in the act in case it was not obliged to. He told the court that the GPPA made a query to the GCAA which was before the accused person's tenure. There might be other queries he said, as different officers could write to the GCAA.

Mrs. Taal will be back in court on Thursday.