The witness, Ousman T. Cham, a shareholder with the accused and two others in the company called ATO Civil Engineering and Petroleum company, testified before Justice E. Jaiteh of the Banjul High Court that the 1500 bags of rice was expected to be supplied by WIN WIN Oils Company to the government but the company never did.
WIN WIN is a company owned by the accused, Alagie Kebbeh. And the witness said it was wholly and solely the responsibility of WIN WIN company on behalf of ATO Company to have done the supply.
It would be recalled that the accused, Alagie Kebbeh, was charged with two counts of economic crime and theft contrary to sections 5 (f) and 245 of the Criminal Code.
Between the years 2020 and 2021 in Banjul, Kebbeh was alleged to have received D64,080,000 (Sixty four million, eighty thousand dalasis) from 39 vendors for the supply of 58,500 bags of 50KG rice to the Government of The Gambia. However, Kebbeh allegedly delivered only 17,096 bags and “intentionally refused” to deliver the outstanding 41,404 bags of the 50KG rice.
Also, between the years 2020 and 2021 the accused was alleged to have stolen 41, 404 (Forty-one thousand four hundred and four) bags of 50KG rice belonging to the Government of The Gambia (which was meant for distribution to vulnerable families during the Covid-19 pandemic).
Asked by the Director of Public Prosecution A.M. Yusuf on how ATO company got involved in the supply of 1500 bags of rice to the Ministry of Trade, the witness said he met with the accused who told him there was Covid-19 rice bidding.
“The accused asked me to go to the ministry and bid on behalf of the ATO company. That is how I went and picked the form, filled and submitted it back to the Ministry of Trade,” the witness explained.
After sometime, the witness said, he was contacted by the then director of finance of WIN WIN company (Saja Camara) that the bidding results were out and that ATO got approval to supply 1500 bags of rice and to supply it to the Ministry of Trade.
He said the finance director asked him to go and collect the award letter. “When I collected it, I took it straight to him for processing because getting an award letter was not only enough for the government to give you the money to purchase 1500 bags of rice, but was supposed to give a confirmation that the stock was already available and was expected to get it from WIN WIN through the Director of Finance (Saja Camara),” he indicated.
He added that a confirmation letter was supposed to help the treasury department to pay monies into ATO account and they were expected to purchase the 1500 bags of rice for the Government on behalf of ATO, which WIN WIN company never did.
The witness said he came to know all about the unfolding situation when he was invited for questioning at the Fraud Squad and was asked to provide a statement of account of ATO from Zenith Bank.
He further indicated that he then called his colleague, Touba Gaye, who was also a director, to go with him to Zenith Bank to get the statement of account. “The statement of account was printed for us, and we handed it over to the Fraud Squad,” he said.
“When I was handing over the statement of account,” the witness said, to his “disappointment”, he happened to find out that, 8 other WIN WIN vendors’ Covid rice monies were lodged into the ATO account.
“That was the first time I saw and knew about it,” he said, adding that when he met up with Alagie Kebbeh at the Fraud Squad he asked why they were lodging the monies of the vendors with ATO’s account?
The witness said he told the accused that ATO had no vendors and that all the vendors belonged to WIN WIN and therefore all the vendors’ monies should go into WIN WIN accounts but not ATO.
“ATO itself is a WIN WIN customer and ATO has no vendor to supply,” he further told the court,“So, it is WIN WIN’s responsibility to supply 1500 bags of rice on behalf of ATO to the government, because that was the confirmation and commitment that WIN WIN gave to the government.”
The witness explained that, by his company ATO in the offing and they had only 2 projects; to supply 1500 bags of rice to government, and a road construction project from Basse Area Council.
The 2 projects, he reiterated, they ever had were to supply 1500 bags of rice to the government and the road construction project which he said they declined to proceed with due to certain reasons.
Asked whether the government had paid the monies for the 1500 bags of rice to ATO, the witness said the government had paid the monies into ATO’s account because WIN WIN gave a confirmation of stocks of their store, which caused or led the treasury department to pay the monies into ATO’s account - because of the confirmation they got from WIN WIN.
