By Oumie Mendy
What’s On-Gambia, a popular online media, has filed a petition to the National Assembly to investigate the Gambia Ports Authority over a fraud scandal involving its staff.
Some staff of the GPA Rating Unit were accused of issuing fake receipts, undercutting fees, and collecting bribes and inducements between 2020 and 2022, making away with D4 million per week.
The GPA management after an inhouse investigation confirmed the fraud through a media statement and announced involving the police for further investigations.
However, concerns were raised that the GPA management has “no interest to recover the missing millions and has refused to release their investigations”.
WOG then started a campaign seeking signatures to petition the National Assembly to investigate the ports management. The petition has since generated over 9000 signatures.
In the petition addressed to the National Assembly and shared with The Standard, it states: “We sought from the GPA the names of members of the panel of their internal investigators, their qualifications and positions in the body corporate. We have further requested the report of the investigation panel but to no avail.
It is important to have this report made public. This will avail the public the opportunity to know if there are cover-ups or any interest on the part of the GPA to effectively and efficiently investigate this matter devoid of any bias. As a result of the GPA’s deliberate act to conceal this vital information from the public and further considering their blatant disregard to the letter and spirit of the Access of Information Act, 2021, we launched an online petition. This petition registered significant interest and attention from the public thereby gathering over eight thousand signatures. Aside from the online signatures of petition, we were able to employ the loyal service of some Gambians (devoid of any fees charged) who were able to collect one thousand and ninety-nine (1099) physical signatures from Gambians across the country. This shows how passionate Gambians are to fight against corruption.”
