The Gambia Government often releases breaking news on Friday evenings, sending shock waves nationwide.
According to official reports, the Minister for Secondary and Basic Education, Madam Haddijatou Sey, resigned from the Cabinet for personal reasons. However, unofficial sources claimed she failed to renounce her dual American citizenship, leading to her exit from the Cabinet.
In a related development, the press release stated that the President, acting under Section 71(4)(b) of the Constitution, relieved the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Ousman Bah, of his duties.
The case of Minister Ousman Bah being relieved of his Cabinet position without the president giving any reason has led to speculation. It is believed that Ousman, who had Dual US-Gambian Citizenship and claimed to have renounced it, waited two months to accept his cabinet appointment. However, there are suspicions that he may have held both Gambian and foreign nationality, contrary to a provision in the 1997 Gambian Constitution. Did Ousman lie about renouncing his US citizenship? Is this why Minister Sey was given the option to resign, while Minister Bah was not allowed this privilege and was instead sacked?
Could there be a completely different reason for Minister Bah’s sacking? Why would Minister Bah’s dual citizenship issue arise now? Was due diligence applied when he claimed to renounce his dual nationality? Have other ministers with dual nationalities provided verifiable evidence supporting their claims of renouncing their other nationalities?
Should we consider that the Barrow administration might have a separate matter concerning Minister Bah and decided to use the circumstances surrounding Minister Sey’s dual nationality as a smoke screen to eliminate Minister Bah?
Given the level of corruption within the Barrow administration, many programs and reforms have substantial financial implications. For example, the upcoming sale of the National Telecoms Network GAMTEL and the renewal of our National Identity Documents contract are presently in limbo.
Gambians deserve answers on why Minister Bah got Sacked. Was he implicated in Corruption, or did he fail to facilitate a scheme for Barrow and his team?
Please read the Article below, which is of greater relevance now. We did plan to publish the article a week ago, but due to the Judicial and Parliamentary Bill debate dominating the media space, we held back the publication.
OPEN GAMBIA PLATFORM RECEIVED ALLEGATION OF SEMLEX OFFICER BRIBED CABINET MINISTERS!
About two months ago, Open Gambia Platform (OG) received information from an International Security Consultant who gave us leads to investigate allegations that a Semlex company representative had bribed some of President Barrow’s Cabinet members and that the Communication and Digital Economy Minister had rejected the bribe offered to him as a first target while referring the Semlex Representative to two of his colleagues who are also involved in the approval process for licence issuance. Minister Bah recorded his discussion with the Semlex representative.
The consultant said they received information that Minister Bah refused to take a bribe to influence the extension of Semlex’s contract with the Gambia government.
The consultant narrated how Minister Bah led the Semlex representative into an entrapment scheme to gather more evidence (by recording their conversations). The minister laid out an elaborate entrapment plan by suggesting to the Semlex representative that his colleagues and stakeholders in the project may accept his offer.
The consultant further narrated that after the Semlex officer took up the suggestion from Minister Bah, he proceeded to negotiate with the other Cabinet ministers. He returned to brief the Communication and Digital Economy Minister on the outcome of the discussions with the other Cabinet member stakeholders, confirming that the ministers agreed to accept the proposition of taking a bribe from Semlex in exchange for their contract renewal, leading to another recording of the conversations by Minister Bah as evidence.
Finally, after Minister Bah received feedback on records from the Semlex representative confirming that the other Cabinet Ministers had accepted the proposition of bribery to extend the Semlex contract, Minister Bah took the entire recorded conversations as evidence and shared it with the Cabinet as a whole in the presence of President Barrow.
The consultant feels Minister Bah should be praised for his integrity and honesty if the narrative is accurate. We disagree with the consultant’s observations, which pointed to the conflict of interest in which Minister Bah was involved. Malagen’s investigation reports that he secured a contract with the government for his private company. At the same time, his ministry oversaw the awarding of the contract.
We observe that Minister Bah might have capitalised on Semlex’s desperations to gain credit and approval as an honest person because Semlex had earlier launched a media campaign against the Minister, alleging that a Ghanaian company was influencing Minister Bah to win the contract being executed by Semlex on its expiry.
OG took a keen interest in investigating the bribery allegations because of the seriousness of the claims and Semlex’s lousy reputation. The company was accused of issuing bribes to government ministers to secure contracts. As reported by various anti-corruption institutions and media outlets, the company has a checkered history in Africa, tarnished by previous deals with dodgy regimes or ministers.
Because of the case’s complexity, it’s impossible to obtain evidence to prove it without having access to Minister Bah or a Semlex representative. Either the Minister, Semlex, or other Cabinet Ministers accused would willingly provide the proof. OG was left with the only option of contacting friends of Minister Bah as a start to find further leads W.R.T. unveiling the facts.
We contacted two close associates of Minister Bah separately in a telephone conversation. We presented the information we gathered in our investigations of claims that Minister Bah had given evidence in the Cabinet of a sting operation of Semlex offering bribes to Cabinet Ministers. Some of these ministers accepted the proposition of bribery to facilitate the extension of the Semlex contract.
Both of Minister Bah’s associates confirmed the allegations to be accurate, but they refused to elaborate on what they knew; one of Bah’s associates told us that he couldn’t disclose any further details, but he promised to reach out to the minister and informed him of a leak of information that would probably persuade the minister to talk to us.
Following these findings from Minister Bah’s associates, we took the initiative to contact Mr Modou Sowe Semlex, country representative, to confront him with the allegations made against his company with the confirmations from Minister Bah’s associates.
We sent messages directly via WhatsApp to Mr Sowe but never got a response. Also, we contacted a fixer of Mr Sowe who once contacted us and introduced us to Mr Sowe around ( May 2023) when Semlex launched the smear campaign accusing Minister Bah of accepting a bribe from a Ghanaian company that wanted to take over their contract, which we refused to publish because they couldn’t provide material evidence or plausible circumstantial evidence for us to publish their claims.
Hence, we did not have additional feedback from Minister Bah’s associates, nor did we get any response from the Semlex representative, Mr Sowe. We feel it is prudent to publish our findings in the open space for the public interest and accountability as well as to trigger to
the interest of other oversight agencies in the matter.
The government hasn’t been handling the Semlex contract transparently and competently, leading to insecurity relating to our national documentation and the chaotic handling of the issuing of national documents. We call on all moral citizens to demand their national assembly representative take an interest in investigating the allegations, the entire handling of the Semlex contract, and the issue surrounding the handling of our national document by any private entity.
It wouldn’t be the first time Semlex has been involved in a controversy over bribing Barrow administration officials. When the Barrow Administration came to power, it inherited a five-year deal signed by Jammeh administrator and former Interior minister (Ousman Sonko) in June 2016 to have Semlex develop and implement biometric identification cards and border control systems for The Gambia.
The signing of this contract between Jammeh’s regime and Semlex after the dictators illegally terminated a contract with Pristine, a company owned by a Gambian ( Draman Touray).
The general public expected that the Barrow government would review the contract signed by the Jammeh regime and fairly hand it back to Pristine due to the muddy manner in which the contract was seized from Pristine and awarded to Semlex
Unfortunately, people’s hope for the new administration’s action was dashed when, in a press release in July 2017, the government confirmed that Semlex is the national contractor to issue Identity cards, implying that all other contracts are no longer valid.
In addition to their old contract, in January of 2018, Semlex was offered another sensitive contract, again with no apparent government oversight: to provide citizens with voter cards. Critics fear that if a company is accountable to a regime for the success of its business, it might be asked to, or willingly volunteer, to use its production of voter cards to influence elections. The country will hold its next presidential elections in 2026.
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