Gambia: For The Attention Of The Concerned Gamtel Staff

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE CONCERNED GAMTEL STAFF
Since you prefer to write about me and kept your identity anonymous, even though I know who you are, I will still prefer to keep your identity anonymous. However, the purpose of this response is to shed light on the lies you untruthfully posted on the Freedom Newspaper in defense of the article I wrote concerning the 11 million dalasi criminal past of Mr. Seedy Jaiteh that landed him in a 11 years jail time. Because you cannot get at me truthfully, you decided to fabricate and twist issues with untruthful intent to score points against me. The objective of this article is to shed light on each of the issues you raised in your article published in the Freedom Online paper as follows:

1. That: Khadijatou Jallow Sarr used to take fuel coupons from HR to go to Basse and back in the name of going for official service.

Anonymous Gamtel staff, I was the Director of audit before Mrs. Khadijatou Jallow Sarr resigned from Gamcel as Senior Manager Internal Audit. It was a procedure that, the Senior Manager Internal Audit (Khadijatou Jallow Sarr) to approve all provincial treks  by staff under her section. In turn, provincial treks for the Senior Manager Internal Audit be approved by the Director (being myself then).
Trek approvals include full tank of fuel for the Audit vehicle going on trek and night allowance payments to each of the staff going on trek. As sufficient fuel was always approved and provided for trekking purpose, it was absolutely unnecessary for Mrs. Khadijatou Jallow to additionally request fuel coupons from Seedy Jaiteh for the same purpose.
Mrs. Khadijatou Jallow Sarr is a Chartered Certified Accountant with a high degree of integrity who has all along maintained a high degree of ethical integrity. This has earned her a very high degree of respect in both Gamtel and Gamcel  (Note: that you lied on this issue).

2. That: The Managing Director (Mr. Babucarr Sanyang) approved a car loan of D600,000 for me two years before I retired from service.

Anonymous Gamtel staff, a D600,000 loan was approved for me four years prior to my retirement from Gamtel/Gamcel.  This car loan was approved for me by Mr. Jamal Miknas, the former Managing Director of Gamtel, and not Baboucarr Sanyang the current Managing Director. The approval was consistent with the integrated pay policy whereby Directors and Senior Managers can apply for car loans and only pay half of the loan and the other half be absorbed by the company.
I would have been foolish not to grab this opportunity like all other Directors. On my retirement from the service, my remaining loan balance was sent to Social Security by Gamtel HR (as was the practice) to be recovered from my benefits. Social Security deducted my remaining loan balance from my benefits and paid to me the residual amount. A cheque equivalent to the outstanding car loan amount was sent by Social Security to Gamtel to off-set my remaining car loan. Go and verify this information at Gamtel Finance, Gamtel HR and Social Security. (Note that you again lied on this issue).

3. That I connived with the NIA Officials and tampered with monies recovered from the Gamcel E-Voucher fraudster (Mr. Touray), and that I single handedly conducted the fraud investigation.

The amount of D21,000,000 mentioned in your article is incorrect, as the correct amount was D8,200,000. This amount was recovered in two payments recovered from Mr. Saikou Touray (fraudster). Mr. Almamy Gassama (the then Gamcel General Manager) collected both cheques with the assistance of the NIA, and the amounts were deposited into the Gamcel bank accounts. The Gamcel Finance records could attest to this fact. Mr. Almamy Gassama could be contacted at the Gambian Embassy in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa). The audit was conducted by myself and my staff, and after establishing the correct amount involved in the fraud, the case was taken over by the NIA and the recovery was followed and the two payments were collected by Mr. Almamy Gassama (the then Gamcel General Manager) and were deposited into the Gamcel bank accounts. The two amounts recovered could be traced in the Gamcel bank accounts in their Finance section.
In your report, you untruthfully insinuated that I and the NIA colluded and tampered with the funds recovered from Mr. Saikou Touray (the fraudster). (Note that you again lied on this issue also).

4. That: I arranged with the Gamtel Managing Director (Mr. Baboucarr Sanyang) and was paid per diem to travel to the U.S without securing clearance from the president.

I had approved to attend an Arbutus audit software application training training under my professional CISA certification. This would have eased the manual and time intensive excel based auditing being conducted at both Gamtel and Gamcel. After the training, I would have returned back and recommend that both Gamtel and Gamcel to jointly purchase a software licence for eight users and for me to conduct training on the software as a trainer. However, the training did not start as planned, it started two months later and was completed three weeks thereafter. The completion of the training coincided with the end of my contract with Gamtel/Gamcel. As I have then already secured a job in the U.S that was paying in two weeks much more than I was paid in Gamtel in a month, I had to stay. According to my travel itenary, I would have lost my ticket if I were to seek approval from the President for travel clearance.

5. RETURNED CHEQUES

I agree with you that there were few instances when my personal cheques were returned to Gamtel due to delays experienced in the timely payments of completed private consulting jobs I was conducted other companies. This has happened to virtually 80% of the company’s senior staff. You must be aware that the policy for each returned staff personal cheque would attract a full payment of the amount of the cheque plus a penalty of D500 for each cheque so returned. My returned cheques were all fully paid for plus all penalties.

TO CONCLUDE

In your support for Seedy Jaiteh, whom I called an economic criminal, you went all the way to lie in order to tarnish my image. In order for you to defend Seedy Jaiteh, you went all the way to lie about me without basis. Gamtel does not need criminal surrogates like your self to remain employed in that company, as you stand to defend criminal acts – since you are a criminal yourself.

My article on Seedy Jaiteh, was intended to save my country from those criminals like Seedy Jaiteh, who are bent on putting into practice the bad and prevalent notion that: “a sheep feeds from where it is tied”. For The Gambia to develop, it should be cleansed of corruption which is presently most rampant in that country. Forget about developing the Gambia if we if we have to recycle fraudsters back into employment in institutions which form the backbone of the country’s economy. Due to the length of this article, I will pen-off for now and will keep the rest of the ammunition for later.

 Please, please fire back again, I will be waiting and the next time, I will reveal your identity before getting into more issues relating to both Seedy Jaiteh and yourself.
Written By Sulayman Sidibeh