By Omar Bah
Mayor Talib Ahmed Bensouda of KMC has alleged that The Gambia government purchased vehicles for the OIC Summit at prices potentially D5 million higher than their actual cost.
The mayor’s claim echoed wide spread public concern about the procurement process and costs of the dozens of luxury SUVs bought for the summit, which reportedly cost over D760 million in total.
The vehicles, mainly Toyota Land Cruiser SUVs, were acquired to accommodate the 57 member states attending the summit in Banjul. Critics questioned the reported high price and logic of the purchase given that the summit lasted for just a few days. They argued that the government could have opted for renting vehicles at a fraction of the cost or purchasing fewer, more economical cars. The procurement process itself has been questioned for potential irregularities, including possible single sourcing and lack of competitive bidding, which may have contributed to ‘inflated prices’.
Speaking on Coffee Time with Peter Gomez on Monday, Mayor Bensouda said: “They went and spent D12 million per vehicle for the personal use of a minister. You go online today and check what a Land Cruiser costs. Individuals are buying Land Cruisers for $100,000.
At the time, that is D6.5million. So with $2,500 shipping, or D120,000, you could get it here. So for D7.1 million, you could get a Land Cruiser. Where does the extra D5 million come from? And these are not vehicles serving any purpose for the general public.”
Besouda added that a World Bank project recently procured those same type of vehicles for just D3 million each.
“You know how I know that? When the project vehicles came, the ministers didn’t like the fact that civil servants were going to drive the same standard of vehicles they are using because they want to be at a higher class. They now pushed these guys and say, we don’t want you guys to drive these vehicles. We want all these vehicles to report to the State House immediately”.
He alleged that all the 20 project vehicles were then sent to the state house.
“Can you imagine these project vehicles were driven to the State House, but when they reviewed the invoices, they said to themselves, let’s not make noise about this because when people realise the difference between the prices of these project vehicles and the same types bought for the OIC, it might be bad. Let’s just allow them to go back with their vehicles. This is how I learned about this story. So the D12 million vehicles they are using now, could have been purchased at D3 million. So now, how can they now talk about KMC trucks that are serving the population?” the mayor told Peter Gomez.
