By Dr. Ousman Gajigo
Last week, government officials decided to conduct a join press conference with the visiting IMF mission. The government team was led by the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Mr. Seedy Keita. I have long said that I consider Mr. Seedy Keita to be the most incompetent finance minister in the history of the country. So, I was not surprised that his performance at that press conference was an embarrassment at a technical level. But I was genuinely surprised at the level of misinformation he also peddled at the event.
The investigative journalist, Mr. Mustapha K. Darboe, posed several questions about the illegal Russian oil scandal and the government’s business dealings involving the President’s nephew, local banks, and the government’s selection of businessmen with questionable backgrounds. These topics came up because the IMF mission emphsized the commitments that The Gambia governments made in the areas of combating corruption and resources mobilization.
Here is the relevant background on the Russian oil scandal. In November 2024, the Republic newspaper broke a major story about the illegal selling of Russian oil that was under international sanctions. Specifically, blacklisted individuals illegally exported Russian oil, surreptitiously transferred the cargo multiple times in international waters to avoid detection, and looked for countries where corrupt officials could be bought and the illegal oil could be sold without questions asked. They naturally found The Gambia. Gam Petroleum allowed the diesel oil to be sold directly in the local market.
During the press conference, reporter Mustapha Darboe raised a question about why no revenue was paid to the state by the company (Apogee) that sold the Russian oil. Before moving to the issue of tax payment, I was curious about how the Ministerof Finance would handle the issue of illegal oil being brought into the country and how many laws and regulations were broken to enable such a transaction to occur. But Minister Keita gave no indication whatsoever that he was concerned about the illegal provenance of the diesel oil. Mr. Keita simply referred to it as “an oil transaction.” It says a lot about the character of a government when a cabinet minister won’t even express concern about the long list of illegal acts that allowed the oil to be sold in the local market.
My real astonishment about Minister Keita’s conduct came when he made claims concerning tax payment. First, he indicated that Apogee did not have corporate tax liability because it was not registered locally. The fact is that Apogee FZC sold the diesel directly to Gambian entities using two shell companies, had an official on the ground, and opened a bank account. In other words, it was not an offshore company that was simply a party to a cross-border transaction – it effectively operated on Gambian soil and did so without proper registration, in contravention of numerous regulations, and of course without paying tax.
Technically, the company was not registered. But how come theMinister of Finance is not concerned despite this, Apogee how was it able to sell oil directly to local companies? How was it able to open a bank account? These complicating facts didn’t seem to bother Mr. Keita at all. Apogee benefitted from all the privileges it needed to profitably dispose of its illegal cargo as if it were registered locally but deftly avoided any responsibilities, including tax liability. And it succeeded in doing so because it counted on officials like Minister Keita to peddle the necessary excuses.
The second point that Minister Keita made had to do with whether Apogee did in fact pay any tax. Minister Keita indicated that simply because the diesel price paid by consumers at petrol stations included tax, the company involved in the product’s distribution (in this case, Apogee) automatically paid tax. Such a claim suggests either a deliberate attempt at obfuscation or an unbelievable level of incompetence for someone holding such an important ministerial portfolio. The reality that the price paid by final consumers includes tax is a question of tax incidence, which is a separate issue from whether a company involved in a product’s distribution has any tax liabilities at all.
Let’s be more specific here. Fuel in The Gambia is subject to tax, whose incidence does fall on fuel consumers. Nevertheless, all firms involved in the petroleum value chain have various tax liabilities beyond the issue of tax incidence of VAT or excise tax. Specifically, corporations are required to pay corporate income tax on their earnings. There are several other kinds of taxes for which a company such as Apogee would have had liabilities. Apogee failed to pay corporate income tax or expatriate tax (it had staff on the ground), PAYE, and probably many other taxes that other companies operating in the country were required to pay.
Minister Keita condescendingly remarked that reporter Mustapha Darboe needed a lesson on taxation when sadly he is the one who needs to seek a refund from his alma mater for his poor grasp of taxation. Even if Mustapha Darboe had wrongly phrased the question – which he did not, by the way – he could be forgiven because he is a journalist and not a tax expert or a senior official at the Ministry of Finance. But fiscal affairs, of which taxation is a major component, is the main portfolio of the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs. What excuse does Minister Keita have for such a poor grasp of this important issue under his responsibilities?
When it came to the business dealings of the PResident’snephew, Mr. Seedy Keita arguments were no better. If you recall, Win-Win is a company selected by the government to lead rice importation in a scheme where the government guaranteed a letter of credit. The majority shareholder of Win-Win was Alhagie Kebbeh, who at the time had a major existing unpaid debt. The commercial bank involved in the transaction (Mega Bank) was also concerned about Mr. Kebbeh’s credit history. The government still green-lighted the transaction despite it violating prudential regulations (which necessitated the involvement of the Central Bank, whose advice against the transaction was also ignored). The Ministry of Industry, which was headed by Seedy Keita at the time, insisted on proceeding with Win-Win despite these concerns.
Mr. Keita attempted to justify the selection of Win-Win by saying they were trying “to empower Gambians” – by this, he meant supporting specific local importers to engage in rice importation. Identifying the appropriate goal is important to achieve results. I have always found that listening carefully to articulated goals helps reveal whether a government official will partake in corruption or facilitate its occurrence. If the government is going to be involved in rice importation, the goal that should motivate it is improving the affordability of essential goods for the average Gambian. That should be the primary consideration. Who will do the importation is a secondary consideration.
Of all the Gambian businesses that can import rice, the question of how and why Win-Win was selected is highly pertinent. When Minister Keita was asked this question, he inexplicably brushed it aside. Any government ministry selecting a private business to benefit from a government scheme needs to conduct background checks of beneficiaries at a minimum. That due diligence is necessary for safeguarding public resources. After all, if the wrong candidates are selected, you might as well throw away public resources.
Minister Keita’s incompetence really shone through when he spoke about the so-called pilot process that led to the selection of Win-Win. He indicated that “when you are doing a pilot, you don’t advertise.” Where in the world did this Barrow minister get this concept? A pilot phase of a process or project is simply a trial run on a limited scale. It does not dictate how one should select the beneficiaries of the project. It certainly does not prevent the government from advertising or publicizing the activity. In fact, fairness would ensure that the initial beneficiaries are selected on merit through an open and fair process.
This article would have been much longer if I tried to address all the problematic pronouncements made by this incompetent minister.