By Tabora Bojang
The controller of government vehicles Famara Saidybah yesterday told the National Assembly’s Special Committee investigating the disposal of former president Jammeh’s assets that he cannot differentiate vehicles owned by former president Jammeh and those belonging to the government.
He said this in response to a question asking how he differentiated vehicles belonging to the former president from that of the state. He continued: “To be honest it would be very difficult for me to differentiate them since Jammeh would bring a number of vehicles to the presidency without involving my office, and I never recorded any vehicle Jammeh owned. I was not in charge of his vehicles.”
Saidybah revealed that vehicles of the former president were under the control of the State Guards and that he is only involved when they want to register a vehicle or to transfer ownership.
He accused the former president of taking government owned vehicles and transferring them to individuals or to the APRC party.
“People who have been given vehicles would call my attention to say they have a vehicle to be documented and I would document the vehicle the way they wanted me to, I would assign or transfer the ownership to that person based on the instructions given,” Saidybah further said.
33 govt vehicles given to APRC
He further claimed that in November 2016, some 33 vehicles purchased by the government were all given to the APRC and some regional governors.
“I only knew that these vehicles belonged to the government after Jammeh’s exit in 2017. In February of that year, TK Motors came and claimed ownership of those vehicles saying they were being supplied to the government, I was assigned to verify the ownership of those 33 pickups and it was during the verification that I knew those vehicles were purchased by the government, supplied by TK Motors but they were all labeled as APRC vehicles,” he said.
Mr Saidybah will continue his testimony on Wednesday.
