National Assembly Agrees to Central Bank’s Request for Closed-Door Meeting on Petroleum Saga

By Ramatoulie Jawo 

The National Assembly’s Joint Committee on Finance, Public Accounts, and Public Enterprises on Monday agreed to hold a closed-door session at the request of the Central Bank regarding the ongoing petroleum products saga.

The Central Bank of The Gambia appeared before the committee to address issues surrounding the 36,953.614 metric tons of petroleum products, valued at $30 million, in question. The Bank’s management requested that the hearing be held privately, citing concerns over potential implications if the proceedings were public.

Governor Buah Saidy reminded the committee of the sensitive nature of the report, emphasizing that a public hearing might have unintended consequences. The Central Bank is expected to present findings from its investigation into the commercial banks involved in the matter.

Before the hearing commenced, the Co-Chair of the Joint Committee, Alagie S. Darboe, informed journalists that the Central Bank had requested a private testimony, excluding the media from the session.

“The committee has looked into the merits of the request, and therefore we agreed to consider the request for the proceeding to be off Camera, and we wish to apologise to the media if we had received the request early we would have notified the media, so we appealed base on the request and the merits attached, the meeting will be held off camera,” he said. 

It was later revealed that the request for a closed session had been made verbally by Governor Saidy rather than in writing.

The Central Bank had first appeared before the committee on August 28, when Governor Saidy informed members that the Bank’s supervision department was investigating how three companies, suspected of importing and selling Russian fuel in The Gambia without paying taxes, were able to open accounts with commercial banks.

Journalists present at the National Assembly expressed frustration over the decision, noting that this was not the first time the committee had closed hearings after initially announcing them as public inquiries.