By Sulayman Waan
The interim leader and Secretary General of the former ruling Alliance for Patriotic, Re-orientation and Construction (APRC) party, Mr. Fabakary Tombong Jatta, has called challenged the Barrow government to explain how the assets of former President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh were sold.
The veteran ex-APRC parliamentarian for Serekunda East seat, made his party’s demand known in a press briefing held at his Tallinding residence on Wednesday May 10, attended by some senior members of his party. He added that every Gambian has the right to know how former president Jammeh’s belongings were sold.
“We all know former President Jammeh’s various types of vehicles, very expensive vehicles. We have seen them with former Ministers and some in government. They are sold out,” the opposition APRC leader remarked.
Jatta claimed that the sale of ex-President Jammeh’s properties was done clandestinely, while alleging that Mr. Nyang Njie, a Gambian economist, had bought Jammeh’s Range Rover that’s worth over two million dalasi (over D2,000,000), for only hundred thousand dalasi (only D1,000,000).
According to the experienced politician, when former president Jammeh was leaving for exile, there were over twenty (20) containers in his Kanilai home filled with furniture, laptops, flat-screen televisions and different categories of advanced farming machines worth billions of dalasis.
However, the APRC interim leader said most of those materials have disappeared, as he claimed to have been informed by a reliable source that some government officials are using some of these flat-TV in their houses.
The former ruling party lawmaker further told the press that, ex-President Jammeh was having about seven thousand (7000) cattle in various places in the country. He added that when the Barrow’s government came to power (in 2017), it formed a Committee responsible for the selling of Jammeh’s cattle.
“Where is the balance of the remaining cattle?” he asked, rhetorically.
Responding to press questions, Jatta argued, “We only understand the committee was set up to sell the cattle.” The APRC leader used the briefing to challenge journalists to engage government and the Janneh Commission of Inquiry, so that they would tell Gambians the whereabouts of the ex-Gambian leader’s remaining cattle.
He said the only reliable information he got was that the committee sold only 720 head of cattle.