By Tabora Bojang
The banking supervision department of the Central Bank of The Gambia is conducting investigations to establish how three companies suspected of importing and selling Russian fuel in the Gambia without paying tax, opened their accounts at commercial banks, Governor Buah Saidy told the National Assembly committee currently enquiring the saga.
“We are going to focus on how these businesses open accounts at our banks and whether customer due diligence is done properly and also movement of those monies in the accounts,” Governor Saidy told the NAMs.
Though the governor did not mention the names of the banks concerned, a source in the joint National Assembly Committee as well as the testimony of the first witness and the NAM who filed the motion for an enquiry Sainey Jawara, both confirmed that the accounts in question are at Ecobank and Access Bank.
The Assembly joint committee is investigating Apogee FZC, Ultimate Beige Logistics and Creed Energy Limited for importing and selling about 36,935.614 metric tons of petroleum products worth $30 million while evading tax.
Also testifying on the steps taken by the CBG, Deputy Governor Dr Paul Mendy said the probe will establish whether accounts were opened for individuals or legal persons that don’t exist.
“If that is the case, there are measures that the governor can approve in terms of penalties. This is multifaceted and all the key stakeholders ought to take appropriate action and as a country we ought to make sure if there are tax violations they must be punished. If there are money laundering violations they must be punished because from the information that we got from the FIU. Apogee was not registered, so how do they issue instructions to move funds? That to me is money laundering and it ought to be prosecuted appropriately,” Mendy told the enquiry.
The CBG officials said their investigations will be completed in the coming days and will be submitted to the National Assembly Committee.
