By Tabora Bojang
National Assembly Members have yesterday engaged Finance Minister Seedy Keita about the much talked about procurement and payment processes of vehicles purchased by the government for the OIC summit.
The NAMs wanted to know the exact number of vehicles purchased, how were they purchased and from whom.
The minister confirmed that a total of 89 vehicles were purchased by government from Espace Motors which pre-financed the transaction.
Asked by Hon Sainey Jawara of Lower Salloum how many vehicles were received from Espace Motors owned by Muhammed Jah, reasons why it was single-sourced and evidence of the contract, tender documents, and GPPA approvals, Minister Keita said it was done through an open tender due to time pressures and approval was given by the Gambia Public Procurement Authority GPPA and bids submitted by Shyben Madi, TK Motors, Espace Motors, Cornerstone among other bidders.
“All bids were opened and the prices were announced in the presence of bidders’ representatives. The bids were evaluated based on price, technical specification, scored by a committee. Espace Motors won the first Lot while TK Motors won the second, but due to re-assessment of VIP needs and consideration for costs, the OIC board advised for a change of specification as follows; Lot 1: 60 Toyota Land Cruisers at a cost of 7.4 million Euros, Lot 2; 21 Prado VX, at a cost of 1.3 million Euros, 6 Mercedes Benz at a cost of 1.4 million Euro and 2 Mercedes Benz Vans at a cost of 170,000 Euros. So, Lot 1 was negotiated and awarded to Espace Motors while Lot 2 went under protracted negotiation with TK Motors. In the end, we could not agree on terms sought by TK Motors and as a result, Lot 2 too was awarded to Espace Motors,” Keita explained.
He said the entire fleet of 89 vehicles costs 9.96 million Euros.
The Lower Saloum NAM further asked the minister to furnish the Assembly about the sources of monies spent on the vehicles since he was not aware of it being included in the budget. The Minister replied: “These transactions were within a very short deadline and this was not budgeted in the 2024 budget, so we went to Ecowas Bank for Investment and Development in West Africa and they approved a loan financing of $15 million to finance this transaction but unfortunately, their financing terms are not concessionary and that means the interest is not a concessional term. So, we could not use that [$15M from Ecowas Bank] so we had to ask the supplier [Espace Motors] to pre-finance the vehicles. As we speak, we have not even paid more than 20 percent of the value of these vehicles yet. In fact, the first payment only came in about two months ago which was D120 million”.
NAM Jawara didn’t relent and further asked the minister to explain how the government managed to get that 20 percent payment made to Espace Motors.
Minister Keita responded: “We looked at the vehicle budgets of all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and collapsed them into one and used those proceeds to pay this 20 percent advance”.
He said all the MDAs were consulted about that move which was why some of them were allocated vehicles after the summit.
