The accused persons are Muhammadou Lamin Jaiteh - Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Balla Kandeh-Programme Manager of the Malaria Control Programme, and Omar Malleh Ceesay- Executive Director of the Health Promotion and Development Organisation.
They were charged with 18 criminal offences, including official corruption, disobedience of statutory duty, conspiracy, economic crimes, forgery, and theft.
Sheriff S. Corr, a Fraud Squad police officer at the Police Headquarters testified as the third prosecuting witness. He said a complaint letter which emanated from the Ministry of Health in January 2023 requested for the investigation into an audit report that was conducted on the National Malaria Control Programme from the period of 2018 to January 2019.
He disclosed that the investigation uncovered an alleged ineligible expenditure of the Global Fund Grants to the amount of Eleven Million, Four Hundred and Seventy Thousand dalasis (D11,470,000).
The witness further said that upon the receipt of the letter, entries were made in the Fraud Squad dairy and a panel of three was constituted to investigate the alleged corruption.
Subsequently, he said, the accused persons were invited to the office in order to shed light on the issues, while they were confronted with the audit reports.
Director of Public Prosecution AM Yusuf asked the witness to explain who were the members in the panel and he responded that the panel was headed by Inspector Bakary Drammeh, who was transferred to Manjai police station, Modou Gaye, serving a UN mission in Darfur, South Sudan, and himself Sheriff S.Corr.
During the course of the investigation, he stated, the Ministry of Health in 2018 received a grant confirmation of thirteen thousand US Dollars (USD13,000) meant for scaling of malaria control in the Gambia from 2018 to 2020.
He added that when it was time to implement the activities, the Ministry of Health contacted the Health Promotion and Development Organization (HePDO) to go ahead with it.
As per documents from HePDO, he said, consultants were hired and the contract was between Muhammed Sissoko, Basiru Phillott, Mamud Ceesay, and Abou Sallah but the contract documents were provided by Mr Ceesay.
DPP AM Yusuf applied to tender the documents to the court, and counsel LS Camara objected that the documents had not been listed on the list of exhibits anywhere. “What we have on the list of documents is the purported contracted documents - but we will not be objecting to that; we will cross-examine it,” he said.
Counsel Camara further said that the documents were photocopies and not certified, they were public documents and not admissible. “They should have brought the original copies,” he said.
Justice E. Jaiteh summoned the executive director of HePDO to produce the original contract documents between HePDO and Muhammed Sissoko, Basiru Phillott, Mamud Ceesay, and Abou Sallah, since the organization is still existing.
The case was adjourned until 11 December 2023.
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