The National Assembly Select Committee investigating the sale of assets linked to former President Yahya Jammeh has given Alieu Njie, Secretary to Cabinet at the Office of the President, 72 hours to produce documents previously requested by the committee.

Mr. Njie had initially written to the committee stating that his office did not possess any records relevant to the inquiry. However, during his testimony this week, he admitted that several documents had since been located.

“Now I have it,” Njie told the committee. “The first time the summons came, I concluded we didn’t have it. I didn’t see it anywhere, and my team also told me we didn’t have it.”

He explained that after receiving the committee’s summons, he and his staff spent two consecutive weekends, four days in total, searching for the documents without success. He later found some of the requested files in a folder marked “Private and Confidential” (PRC).

When asked whether all seven documents requested by the committee were found in the PRC file, Njie responded, “Not everything in the letter is in a closed file. What I am able to provide is what I found in the closed file. When the task force was created, it was under the Ministry of Justice, so obviously we don’t have records of that.”

Among the recovered materials were Cabinet minutes establishing the Ministerial Committee linked to the Janneh Commission, records of its membership, related correspondence, and reports submitted to Cabinet. However, Njie said minutes from the Ministerial Committee’s internal meetings and reports from its technical committee remain missing.

When pressed on whether he had intentionally withheld the documents, Njie denied any wrongdoing.

“That would be very disrespectful. At the end of the day, what would I gain out of it?” he said. “There is no way I would conceal them. I would gain nothing from it except to help the system.”

Njie, who has served as Secretary to Cabinet since 2023, said he had not seen any documentation related to the Janneh Commission during his tenure until the recent discovery.

Following his testimony, the committee, led by Hon. Abdoulie Ceesay, instructed Njie to submit all relevant PRC files within 72 hours.

“We are asking for a series of all files relating to the PR series,” said the lead counsel. Committee chair Hon. Ceesay added, “We want you to produce that file, perhaps in 72 hours.”