Part Three

by Khadija Sharife and Mark Anderson

Payments and Contracts to Key Associates

Ansumana Jammeh, the president’s younger brother, was another central figure in the inner circle. A businessman and diplomat who served as Gambia’s ambassador to Qatar, he was accused in an indictment in a Gambian court of receiving $1.5 million in payments from a Lebanese company, Conapro Dena BMS SAL, which falsely claimed to be in a business venture with a Qatari company.

Gambia’s government paid at least $4.5 million to Conapro’s Lebanese bank account, according to internal correspondence between the parties. Conapro never appeared to deliver on a contract, which involved, in part, the production of food and animal feed. (Conapro would later sue the Gambian government for allegedly failing to fulfill its end of the deal; the case was allegedly settled in Conapro’s favor for $4.6 million in 2017.)

Other central figures in the inner circle included Amadou Samba, then-chairman of the board of the Social Security and Housing Finance Corp., who oversaw investments on behalf of government agencies. Government correspondence and corporate data show that these entities awarded substantial public contracts to companies owned or controlled by Bazzi, including Euro African Group, of which Samba was a 45 percent shareholder, and Gamveg Oil, a vegetable oil company that Samba and Bazzi co-owned.

Samba also owned Gamsen Construction, which received non-transparent multi-million dollar contracts to develop public works projects, including the airport, the Supreme Court building, a commemorative arch in Banjul, and a hospital. In his testimony to the Janneh Commission, Samba said the president’s office “identified the contractors and dished out the contracts. I was not the only one.”

Through an attorney, Samba declined to respond to requests for comment for this story, citing the ongoing investigation into economic crimes during Jammeh’s rule.

Another frequent visitor to Jammeh’s office, Tony Ghattas, oversaw a number of companies, including Gamico, Gambia Milling Group, and Alhamdulillah Petroleum and Mining Company (APAM), which was previously run by Ansumana Jammeh, the president’s younger brother. (Ansumana could not be reached for comment, though some of his testimony is viewable on YouTube.)

These companies continually changed their bank accounts and ownership structures, and were shareholders or managers of deals that benefited from public funds. Some of them were directly under Bazzi’s control. Others were owned or controlled by Jammeh, such as APAM, part of the Kanilai Group International — Jammeh’s corporate umbrella — which was also a co-owner of WestWood.

“All this … was by instructions from General Badjie,” Ghattas told the Commission. “He did not employ me but he has the power. … Everybody knows how. … I am a businessman. I am not ready to be in [the prison] Mile 2 or with the mosquito.”

Ghattas and Badjie could not be reached by reporters. Bazzi did not respond to requests for comment.

Falling Out With a Whimper

The president’s inner circle served entirely at his discretion.

Eventually, Jammeh’s relationship with Bazzi soured. When $10 million of government fuel bills went unpaid in 2013, Bazzi wrote an obsequious-yet-threatening letter warning of “dire consequences” for the economy if the bill wasn’t paid.

On May 7, 2013, Njogu Bah, then the minister for presidential affairs, sent Bazzi a strongly-worded letter scolding him for taking for granted his “special treatment” and “all the other privileges you can think of” provided by Jammeh’s administration.

“It begs the question as to who should be grateful to who?” he wrote.

“In any International Court of Law, you can easily be fried without oil since your rude and arrogant letter is full of thinly-veiled threats that only a stupid, ungrateful and dishonest person, blinded by sheer greed would put in writing and address it to a Head of State,” Bah wrote.

Bah noted that Bazzi had enjoyed a monopoly on fuel imports, but said those days were over.

“This monopoly will be no more,” he wrote. “You will no longer enjoy any new contract with Gambia Government and the one currently with [the utility company] will be cancelled.”

Gambia’s current government did not respond to requests for comment. The government of Equatorial Guinea did not respond to requests to reach Jammeh, who is known to be living there.

Bazzi’s relationship with Jammeh would never recover.

Additional reporting by Attila Biro and Daniela Lepiz.