By Mustapha Darboe
Gambia’s Justice minister, Aboubacarr Tambadou, has informed journalists that the government will be seeking a freezing order from the high court for the Daily Observer newspaper company as one of the assets of the former president Yahya Jammeh.
The government has already frozen dozens of companies, bank accounts and landed properties belonging to Jammeh and his associates last month.
“Our intention is not to shut the Observer if we get the freezing order. At this point, we only applied to the court… We will find mechanisms as we have done in respect of other companies to ensure that they continue to operate. Perhaps what will change is the management,” Tambadou told journalists at a press briefing at his office yesterday.
The new freezing order the government is seeking is in relation to 49 landed properties, 7 bank accounts and 4 companies, the minister disclosed.
“On the freezing of the assets in the country of former President Yahya Jammeh, we continue to receive additional information in respect of a significant number of assets purportedly belonging to him and his close associates. We however want to make sure that the reports we are getting about ownership of these latest assets are factual and accurate,” Tambadou said.
“We have now filed a supplementary list of assets before the High Court in Banjul for the inclusion of these newly-discovered assets in the freezing order. So far, this new list includes 49 additional landed properties located in the Greater Banjul Area bringing the total number of known landed properties owned by former President Yahya Jammeh to 180 in the country.”
Meanwhile, the finance minister Amadou Sanneh has also told The Standard last week that the government has established a committee that is working with World Bank assets recovery committee to get assets that might have been taken out of the country by Jammeh.
