Mr Darboe tendered the bank statement of the business account of Lamin Suso from the first of July 2019 to 31 of August 2021 to the commission.
The first transaction of the account as he revealed was on 23 November 2020. However, the witness accounted that there was no transaction recording before 23 November 2023.
Asked how he knew Lamin, the owner of the Allah-Tentu account with Ecobank Brikama Branch, he testified that he got to know Lamin when he visited their Basse branch with the outgoing financial director, who introduced him as the new financial director of Basse Area Council.
“Lamin was a customer who used to send some people to deposit to his Allah-Tentu account. He used to send Manlafi Badgie and Ndaba Krubally to deposit around D75,000 and around D50,000,” he explained while dwelling on his responsibility that he was a customer service officer and the first point of contact with customers by directing and assisting them in opening accounts and advising them in their financial matters.
The witness confirmed being moved to Brikama as a customer service agent on January 2021, saying that was where his interaction with Lamin stopped.
When he was also told that the commission was aware that Lamin withdrew D700,000 from Basse Ecobank and paid the cash into a Trust Bank Account and asked if he gave preferential treatment when doing withdrawals, he replied that he never witnessed those withdrawals.
As the question-and-answer continued, the witness was told by the lead commissioner that he (Darboe) made withdrawals from the said account. But the witness denied making any withdrawals from the said account. However, he accepted to have made some deposits to the Allah-Tentu Agency account.
Asked whether he knew that the account he used to make deposits for Suso was a legitimate business, the witness insisted that it was not his responsibility to check, arguing that the bank had a compliance department responsible for such.
