Abass Bah a former secretary general of the Gambia Football Federation has dismissed as disappointing a claim by the GFF suggesting that he Mr Bah is working with other associates to smear the image of the GFF leadership.
In a rebuttal to a report on the Point newspaper which reported the currently raging ‘tax fraud’ story, the GFF said they are not “unaware that the Chairman of the National Sports Council and his close associates, including the former General Secretary of the GFF and their close associates in the National Assembly Select Committee for Sports, tried in vain to smear the reputation of this institution in an attempt to bring its name into disrepute.”
Though the GFF statement did not say which former secretary general was been referred to, Abass Bah the immediate former secretary general of the GFF who was in office during the time concerned, told the The Standard he was the one been referred to and he is disappointed that the GFF should attempt to smear his name.
“I have served the GFF with a clean record ensuring that all official transactions under my purview are above board and fully recorded for evidence and I will not allow anybody to soil my name and image. I have evidence in the form of an email that I sent to the project manager a member of the GFF executive Committee informing him that the said tax should be withheld by the GFF before all monies are transferred to the contractor.
The project Manager Bakary Jammeh wrote and signed a letter addressed to the contractor instructing him to pay the D900, 000 tax which should have been withheld by the GFA to pay direct to the GRA. The tax on all other contracts were withheld and paid by the GFF direct to GRA according law except this one. And in anycase the contractor did not pay the tax because the GRA wrote to the GFF to pay it when they heard the National Sports Council chairman Borri Darboe mentioned it in the media. If the GFF leadership had obeyed my email advise to withhold the tax we would not have come to all these. So who can say I am smearing someone’s image?” Mr Bah asked.
He added that he hope that the GFF will explain themselves clearly to the nation as to what happen to the D900, 000 tax which was not paid by them or the contractor until GRA asked for it. “That is what is more important. I have documented evidence of every transaction that transpired under my purview and reign and I hope the GFF will not provoke me to make a public statement again,” he concluded.
