By Kinteh Cham
The chairperson of the Coalition of Progressive Gambians, Seedy Cham has said the President Barrow-led government is highly corrupt while giving references to various audit reports as submitted at the National Assembly by the National Audit Office.
Seedy Cham in an interview with this reporter over the Weekend said D167 Million was invested in the draft of the new constitution, which went into the drain on the partisan line.
He added that, according to the former auditor general, Karamaba Touray, D174 million was spent without justification. He said most of these funds reside with foreign companies.
According to him, the evidence of corruption within President Barrow’s government is the recent confirmation of mismanagement of the Global Fund by the Minister of Finance which is projected at D10 million.
Seedy Cham warns the government to find another way to repay the mismanaged funds to the Global Funds while advising the government not to recoup that fund from the taxpayers’ fund as they (taxpayers) do not know how it was spent and mismanaged.
“Afrobarometre indicated that in the world corruption index, Gambia stands at 110 from 2020/22 which is scary,” he stated.
He added that Barrow’s government is anchored on a high degree of nepotism, corruption, and other forms of social injustice, which he said, should be discouraged through the collective drive. He added that a high sense of nepotism manifested in the office of the president when appointing presidential advisers whom he said are not least qualified for such a high post.
He, therefore, advised the office of the president to institute a commission of inquiries to look into the financial management of government officials taking into consideration the auditors’ reports.
