The witness said he was informed by the accused, who was the CEO of WIN WIN company, that Saja Camara, the director of finance, was the designated finance director for both ATO and WIN WIN companies.
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, and eighty thousand dalasis) from 39 vendors for the supply of 58,500 bags of 50KG rice to the Government of The Gambia. But, allegedly, Kebbeh 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).
When the Director of Public Prosecution, AM Yusuf, asked the witness whether there was any formal appointment of the finance director of WIN WIN and ATO company, the witness responded that he only knew him as the director of finance, according to the instructions he got from Alagie Kebbeh, which he said “were verbal instructions, and he remained doing the functions of finance director until when I left”.One of the directors called Touba Gaye was mentioned by the witness, and the DPP asked how he was appointed too but the witness said Touba Gaye had never been appointed as a director.
The witness added that for many instances if a company was registered, those shareholders were termed to be directors of the company until the actual directors were appointed.“This is the reason I refer to him as a director; however, he was a shareholder like myself,” he pointed out.
In his previous testimony, the witness stated that when he was asked by the Fraud Squad to get the statements of account of ATO company, he found out that 8 other WIN WIN vendors’ Covid rice monies were lodged into the ATO account, which was the first time he knew about it.
He saidhe asked the accused why the monies were lodged into ATO’s account. And he told the accused that ATO had no vendors and that all the vendors belonged to WIN WIN,hence all the vendors’ monies should go into WIN WIN accounts but not ATO.
“We found out that Alagie Kebbeh (the accused) and his finance director had lodged vendor monies into ATO’s account without the prior knowledge of the three shareholders - Ousman T. Cham, Touba Gaye and Amadou Sanneh,” he testified, saying the vendors' monies belonged to WIN WIN and not ATO because it was WIN WIN that went into contract with them and not ATO.
When they examined the statement, the witness explained, those monies were further paid out to other different people hesaid ‘definitely’ he didn’t know. “Some of these payments were conducted through bank-to-bank transactions.”
In that instance, he indicated, the only signatory requirement that was needed was a voucher to be raised and signed as the principal signature - Alagie Kebbeh.
Once that was done, he said, the bank-to-bank transfer would be valid for payment. “We have nonetheless not been signing cheques at the beginning of the company when it started operating as additional signatories; that was myself (the witness), Touba Gaye, and Amadou Sanneh.”
At that time the only money in ATO’s account was D3.4 million that belonged to Alagie Kebbeh, he said, adding that anytime the accused raised a payment he, the witness, would countersign it so that the particular payment was effected.
The case was adjourned till 18 November 2024.
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