By Sirrah Touray
The National Assembly’s Special Select Committee investigating the disposal of former president Jammeh’s assets, yesterday issued a 24 -hours ultimatum to the Accountant General Agnes Macaulay to provide all documents relating to the sale assets of former president Jammeh, his associates and the Janneh Commission.
“If you fail to do so, this committee will invoke the relevant section of the Constitution and the consequences will be serious,” committee chairman Abdoulie Ceesay told the custodian of government accounts.
During her appearance, the committee raised the issue of a summon it sent requesting her to submit all documents, reports, correspondences, or any other materials relating to the sale and disposal of former president Yahya Jammeh’s assets.
However, Madam Macaulay acknowledged that key documents such as receipts were missing from her submission.
At this point, a counsel for the parliamentary committee, Kah, told the AG that the summons sent to her office were formally received and that there was no excuse for her to claim she was on vacation when the summons was sent to her office.
“So it that when you are not in office, everything comes to a standstill,” Counsel Kah asked the AG.
Macaulay replied that such was not the case, prompting the counsel to ask why did it take her about seven weeks to respond from the day the summons was issued.
In her defense, Ms Macaulay cited document collation challenges and overlapping demands from multiple government entities as the primary cause for the delay. “These giant asset documents have been moving from one entity to another. At one point, the ministry of justice requested them, then suddenly we got the summons from the select committee,” she explained.
She added that original documents were sometimes handed over to other institutions, depending on the nature of their requests.
However, AG Macaulay was subsequently issued with a stern warning over what the committee described as “repeated non-compliance” with official summonses, delays in submissions, and a concerning lack of accountability.
In his intervention, Committee chairman Hon Abdoulie Ceesay made an order for the AG to produce every document in her possession relating to the matter within 24 hours.
