Gambians Against Looted Assets (GALA) has demanded that President Adama Barrow immediately account to the public for his government’s handling of assets recovered from the regime of former president Yahya Jammeh, warning that continued silence after a National Assembly inquiry is a failure of leadership.
In a position paper issued on 8 October, the civic group said the President has published no white paper or other formal response to the National Assembly’s Special Select Committee’s approved report on the sale and disposal of assets identified by the Janneh Commission. GALA set a deadline of 30 October 2026 for a substantive response and a costed implementation plan, while insisting that investigations, asset preservation and recovery proceedings must continue in the meantime.
The Special Select Committee was established on 14 May 2025. Its mandate covered the legality and propriety of disposal processes, valuation and pricing, purchasers, conflicts of interest, and the accounting of proceeds. Public hearings ran from 14 July to 26 November 2025, supported by documentary review, investigations and site visits. The group issued the approved report in April 2026. As of the date of GALA’s paper, the group said, the Executive still had not told the country which recommendations it accepts, what action it has taken, who is responsible, and when it will finish outstanding work.
GALA described the committee’s findings as a grave indictment of stewardship of public resources. The report, the group said, documents defective valuation, weak custody, incomplete financial reconciliation, irregular administrative decisions, and inadequate oversight. Assets recovered in the name of justice, it argued, must not become another opportunity for private enrichment or political favor.
The organization rejected any attempt to confine the scandal to junior officials or isolated transactions. Accountability, it said, must follow the chain of custody, authority, decision-making and oversight, covering ministers, senior officials, custodians, advisers, receivers and private beneficiaries. It distinguished the parliamentary report from the earlier Janneh Commission report and its government white paper, and said it was not assuming that the same constitutional procedure applied automatically. It demanded that the Executive respond to the parliamentary findings and implement lawful recommendations, without directing the outcome of prosecutions or judicial proceedings.
Issues flagged for immediate action included fragmented custodial arrangements, inconsistent enforcement of court orders, and livestock sales with incomplete identity verification, receipts, payment records, and valuation documentation. GALA called for a verified inventory of assets sold, retained, transferred, missing, or disputed, supported by custody records, valuations, transaction documents, and bank reconciliations.
On receivership, the committee found failures to remit proceeds within the agreed 72 hours, fee practices inconsistent with engagement terms, and investments and expenditure undertaken without required authority. It recommended investigation by the Accountant General, Auditor General and Financial Intelligence Unit, termination of the receivership contract, suspension of advertised sales, and a documented handover. GALA demanded documentary evidence of the status of each recommendation and a transaction-by-transaction reconciliation of balances, fees, expenses, earnings and transfers.
The paper also pressed for disclosure of action on Tourism Development Area allocations from 2017 to 2025, including a recommended forensic audit, verification of recipients against the Companies Register, and review of the Gambia Tourism Board. It said public land cannot be administered through undocumented instructions, and that political connections must confer no immunity.
Further findings cited by GALA included contempt cases involving Sergeant Adama Jagne and Alieu Jallow; conflicts of interest arising from the appointment of the Janneh Commission’s lead counsel while her firm represented the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation, an institution subject to the inquiry; and the Commission’s administrative and financial dependence on the Ministry of Justice. The group demanded mandatory conflict screening, written declarations, recusal procedures, and reforms to secure the Commission’s independence.
The committee found that the Registrar General acted on instructions to cancel leases without independently verifying legal authority, and that certain cancellations undermined court preservation orders. GALA called for a legal review of the affected cancellations and subsequent transactions, and for the identification of officials who issued and implemented the instructions. It also demanded an urgent records and preservation program, citing inadequate archives, failures to preserve the history of canceled and replacement leases, and unreliable corporate records.
The paper noted that the Ministry of Finance was excluded from an interministerial committee because of concerns involving the minister then responsible, although it later participated at the technical level. The committee rejected exclusion of an entire institution as a response to a conflict involving its political head. GALA said conflicts must be managed by documented recusal or reassignment while preserving the ministry’s statutory role.
Accounting weaknesses included the Accountant General’s absence from certain early tractor and cattle sales, duplicated receipts, and difficulty linking individual disposals to deposits. Although proceeds were generally paid into public accounts, GALA said a bank deposit alone does not prove every asset was properly sold and every payment fully accounted for. It demanded certified, independently audited reconciliation.
GALA highlighted discrepancies in livestock and property figures. The Livestock Report recorded 725 cattle sold against farm totals of 724; Kanilai’s sales record listed 445 cattle against 625 in the Livestock Report, a difference of 180; and recorded proceeds differed from the bank deposit by 1,000 dalasis. Landed-property counts varied between 281 in an earlier white paper, 288 reported by an interministerial taskforce, and 291 computed by the committee, with further conflicting totals of properties covered by High Court orders. GALA called for the Auditor General to conduct a comprehensive reconciliation and independent verification.
The committee recommended police investigations into Justice Sheriff B. Tabally and Alieu Jallow over livestock disposal; criminal investigations into Sheriff’s Department officers, including Seedy Fatty and Modou Musa Ceesay; and an investigation into suspected concealment of landed properties.
The committee referred Sergeant Jagne’s case to the Inspector General of Police and the Attorney General. GALA said the referral does not establish guilt, but it must lead to a documented investigation and a reasoned outcome.
On former Attorney General Abubacarr Tambadou and his successor Dawda Jallow, the committee found violations of the Public Finance Act, exclusion of the Ministry of Finance, unauthorized commercial bank accounts, and threats of criminal proceedings against the finance minister for insisting on legal compliance. It found that Jallow did not materially correct the arrangements and recommended further investigation and, where necessary, legal proceedings against Tambadou, as well as a reprimand of Jallow. GALA said neither should control assessment of his own responsibility.
The paper reproduced the committee’s reconciliation of alleged embezzlement and recorded recovery. In dalasis, recorded recovery of 1,730,716,875.08 exceeded the alleged figure of 1,065,021,512.00. In foreign currency the gap remained vast: of 304,718,071 US dollars alleged, 2,636,676.87 was recorded as recovered, about 99.13 percent unrecovered; of 2,250,000 pounds, 20,250 was recorded, about 99.10 percent unrecovered; of 29,475,269 euros, 15,965.66 was recorded, about 99.95 percent unrecovered. GALA said the figures are a historical reconciliation, not a complete account as of October 2026, and demanded an international tracing program with a named lead institution and quarterly public reporting.
The group also noted the committee’s finding that the National Assembly itself failed to exercise structured oversight of the earlier white paper, and said members cannot discharge their duty by approving another report and leaving it unattended.
GALA’s proposed timetable includes a National Assembly status request by 15 October, the presidential matrix by 30 October, disclosure of investigative and recovery referrals within 30 days of that response, a costed reform program within 90 days, and quarterly reporting thereafter.
It said it will track compliance through public education, information requests, parliamentary engagement, peaceful mobilization, and, where assessed, legal action, without presenting any court application as a guaranteed remedy or prejudging criminal guilt.
