According to Ndour’s statement, he had been depositing monies into the account of the CEO of the Kerewant Area Council, Seedy K. Touray. This forms a part of adverse findings against Ndour.
When he was confronted on this issue by Deputy Lead Counsel Patrick Gomez, he said: “Why I initially said I did not give him money is because I never gave him money directly. But I have indeed been depositing monies to Seedy’s account. Seedy used to hand over monies to me and ask me to deposit them into his account. Whenever he was at Farafenni from Kerewan, it was me that he usually asked to deposit monies into his account. But I never gave monies directly to Seedy. This is how it happened.”
The witness was informed that his narration was the same as the narration of other collectors who have been depositing monies to Seedy’s account. Mbayick, a witness who testified before the Commission earlier that same day, made a similar narration.
“And Mbayick realised that what he was saying did not make sense,” the deputy counsel said.
The witness maintained that he was usually sent by Seedy to deposit monies into his account and even for withdrawals, as Seedy also usually gave him cheques to withdraw monies for him.
Probed on the details, he said he did not know where Seedy got these monies from. He iterated that he is the market master for Farafenni Market and Seedy was residing at Kerewan
Quizzed whether it was correct to suggest that Seedy would drive up to Farafenni to give you money to deposit and drive to Essau and hand over money to Mbayick to deposit
Ndour replied: “I don’t know about the Barra. But for Farafenni, Seedy was always there, especially on Mondays, Wednesdays and weekends. I could recall that whenever he was from a weekend, he would hand over monies to me.”
At this tense moment, the deputy lead counsel addressed the witness saying: “All what you have said here is what Mbayick also said in this Commission. It is the same story that Seedy asked you to say to this Commission, and that is why I am giving you another opportunity to come back to your senses because since 2018 up to 2022, he would meet you during weekends, Fridays and Thursdays and sometimes Saturday. You don’t want to say you are the ones giving him money. It doesn’t make sense, he cannot be travelling from Farafenni all the way to Essau to deposit monies when he could do only one transaction. So be careful what you are saying.”
Ndour persistently maintained that he never took council monies to deposit into Seedy’s account, saying if that had happened he would have relayed exactly that to the Commission.
The deputy lead council mentioned hefty sums that were deposited into Seedy’s account from 2018 to 2022. The witness said he simply carried out these tasks because Seedy was his boss.
Mr Babou Ndour was also asked about his cashbooks, which he said were Farafenni. Chairperson Jainaba intervened at this juncture to ask the witness to provide his previous cash books from the year 2018. But the witness said he did not have a cash book in 2018 but from 2020 to 2022.”
“So how were you recording the monies you were collecting for the council?” the deputy counsel asked.
The witness explained: “There was a time when I was a collector. When I was a collector, I was not supposed to have a cashbook. I had bosses. As I stated in my statement, they were Lamin Dampha and Babou Joof. They were my bosses before I became market master. I go for daily duties and hand over the monies to them.”
The witness reiterated that he became a market master in 2019 and has the cashbooks from that year to date. He also said he had been audited in 2019 and 2020.
“So please, you have been asked to provide these cash books. Since you had no cashbook in 2018, we would confirm that. So you would provide cashbook for 2019, 2020 and 2022,” the deputy lead counsel said.
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