The Inspector General of Police Landing Kinteh on Thursday appeared before the National assembly select committee on sports who wanted to know the state of matters relating to an allegation of tax fraud referred to his office by the National Sports Council against the Gambia Football Federation.
According to our National Assembly source, the Select Committee wanted to know why it took the IGP all this while since the matter was referred to his office for investigations many months ago. Our source would not give the exact exchanges between the two but intimated that a serious discussion took place on the matter which ended with the IGP promising to come back to the Committee on the matter by mid July.
Background.
The National Sports Council NSC which by an act of national assembly in the year 2000 is established as the regulator of all sports in the Gambia has accused the GFF of defrauding the nation by not paying withholding tax of about a million to the GRA from a contract it awarded for some job at the Football Hotel. The NSC made these allegations at a press briefing. Soon after, the GRA wrote a letter to the GFF demanding the payment of a withholding tax to the same tune on the same contact refereed to by the NSC. It is not clear if the GFF had paid the tax but last week Football House said in a rebuttal to a newspaper report on the matter that it has prove of correspondence instructing the contractor to pay the said tax. The NSC had contended that by law the said tax should not have been transferred to the contractor to pay but should have been withheld by the GFF and paid direct to the GRA. According to the NSC the failure of the GFF to collect and pay the tax to the GRA amounts to a fraud, which the GFF vehemently denied. Football House also again accused the NSC chairman and his associates, example a former secretary general of the GFF and others at the National assembly of continuing their witch-hunt against the GFF leadership.
