Dr Cherno Barry, a former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health yesterday testified in the economic crimes trial of PS Muhammadou Lamin Jaiteh, malaria control programme manager Balla Kandeh and Omar Malleh Ceesay, the head of Health Promotion and Development Organisation (HePDO).
The trio have been slammed with 18 criminal charges including economic crimes, forgery, corruption and theft.
Dr Barry, who is now the deputy head of the Senegalo-Gambia Permanent Secretariat, explained that the Gates Foundation-funded Global Fund has been
supporting the national malaria control programme since an agreement was signed in 2018. He said he signed the agreement as permanent secretary.
Defence lawyer Lamin Camara did not object when the Director of Public Prosecution AM Yusuf tendered the agreement as an evidence. The case comes up again on March 5