Banjul The Gambia, May 11, 2022- His Excellency the President of the Republic acting on section 18 (2) and (3) of the Central Bank Act 2018, has appointed the following officials as first and second Deputy Governors of the Central Bank following the expiry of the mandate of their predecessors:
1. Dr. Abdoulie Sireh Jallow, as First Deputy Governor replacing Dr. Seeku Jaabi
2. Dr. Paul J Mendy, Second Deputy Governor replacing Mr. Essa Drammeh
Management of the Central Bank welcomes the newly appointed officials and wishes them a successful tenure of office.
SHORT PROFILE OF DR. ABDOULIE
SIREH JALLOW,
FIRST DEPUTY GOVERNOR
Dr. Abdoulie Sireh-Jallow is a Development Economist with over 25 years of national and international experience. He spent about 8 years with the Government of The Gambia rising from Cadet Planner at the then Ministry of Economic Panning and Industrial Development to Senior Economist and Head of the Macroeconomic and Financial Analysis Unit of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs and finally as Director of the Policy Analysis Unit, Office of The President.
His international experience span 8 years as Economic Advisor and Head of the Strategy and Policy Units of UNDP Country Offices in Zambia, Malawi, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. He spent the last 11 years at the Islamic Development Bank working on development financing, specifically leading the formulation of partnership strategies between Islamic Development Bank and member countries such as Senegal, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and recently Indonesia, Maldives and Yemen.
Abdoulie comes with a lot of experience in management, analytics and dialogue with partners having worked with Economists of the World Bank, African Development Bank, Department For International Development, International Monetary Fund, UN Agencies, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation and other development partners in his duty stations.
His research interests are in development financing, econometric modelling and competitiveness while his current passion is on fiscal space expansion through non-traditional sources of development finance. He has published papers on the empirics of optimal currency areas, development financing, regional integration and dynamic competitiveness in Africa. His most recent publication is a book he co-authored entitled, Financing Development in Africa – Leveraging Non-Traditional Sources of Development Finance that is currently being released. This book addresses policy-relevant issues pertinent to developing countries such as The Gambia.
Abdoulie holds a B.Sc. (Honors) (Economics) from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, MA (Economics) from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts and PhD. (Economics) from McGill University in Montreal Canada.
SHORT PROFILE OF DR. PAUL J. MENDY,
SECOND DEPUTY GOVERNOR
Dr. Paul Joseph Mendy began his distinguished career with the external Audit Firm Pannell Kerr Forster in 1988, immediately after completion of his General Certificate of Education (Advanced Level) from St. Augustine’s High School. He wasted no time in securing the Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue undergraduate studies in the United Kingdom from 1989 to 1992, from where he returned to serve with the Government of the Gambia as a Cadet Planning Officer at the planning Unit, Ministry of Health.
It was from there that he joined the Central Bank of The Gambia as a Banking Officer in February, 1994, having obtained the qualification of Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics, with Honors, from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom in 1992. He also obtained MBA in International Banking and Finance, with distinction from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 2005. While in Nigeria, Dr. Mendy successfully completed the study of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (PhD), with specialization in Finance Management from Azteca University .
Until his return to the Central Bank of The Gambia recently, Dr. Mendy served as the Director, Financial Sector and Payment Systems Department of the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) Nigeria. His responsibilities included development of curriculum and coordination of training programmes in Banking Supervision and Regulation, Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Modern Digital Payments, as well as Anti-Money Laundering and other Financial Crimes. He is an expert in Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), and participated in the second round Mutual Evaluation of some member countries organized by the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA). He also served as one of the experts in the delivery of training on financial soundness indicators (FSIs), portfolio theory and fund management, risk management, macro prudential supervision and a broad range of topics in finance.
During his services with the Central Bank, he participated in numerous Committees and was instrumental in the successful establishment of the national Switch (GAMSWITCH). He was appointed Special Adviser to Financial Institutions in difficulty and successfully assisted in reversing their poor performance. He rose through the ranks to the position of Director 2 of the Financial Supervision Department, Central Bank of The Gambia, a position he held until his secondment to the West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM) in 2017.
His research interest focuses on the establishment of a Capital Market in The Gambia, the predictive validity of the Pecking Order Theory on sources of financing for investments and banking regulation and supervision in The Gambia.
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