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toubab1020
12306 Posts |
 Posted - 21 Jul 2017 : 14:33:48
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A bit more progress .
".........he declared that the Observer is part of the additional companies of former President Jammeh, which his ministry has sought for freezing order."
"........ Observer continues to operate and perhaps what will change is the management of the paper,” he added.
The Attorney General and minister of Justice Abubacarr Tambadou has settled the dust about the ownership of the Observer Company, as he declared that the Observer is part of the additional companies of former President Jammeh, which his ministry has sought for freezing order.
Tambadou was speaking Thursday afternoon at a press conference held at the premises of his office where he further said: “We have now filed a supplemental list of assets before the High Court in Banjul for the inclusion of these newly discovered assets in the freezing order. So far, this new list includes 49 additional landed properties located in the Greater Banjul area bringing the total number of known landed properties owned by former President Yahya Jammeh to 180 in the country.”
He further stated that his ministry continues to receive additional information in respect of a significant number of assets purportedly belonging to former President Jammeh and his close associates. However, he added that they want to make sure that the reports they are getting about ownership of these latest assets are factual and accurate.
He said the list also includes some 6 or 7 bank accounts and 3 or 4 companies that they have recently discovered and the companies include the Daily Observer and his ministry’s intention was not to shut the Observer down. “It is not our intention to close down the Observer but we will find mechanisms as we have done in the other companies to ensure that the Observer continues to operate and perhaps what will change is the management of the paper,” he added.
by Fatou Sowe
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"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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Momodou
Denmark
11641 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jul 2017 : 20:35:10
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Baba not Jammeh owns Observer – documents
The Standard Newspaper: July 21, 2017
http://standard.gm/site/2017/07/21/baba-not-jammeh-owns-observer-documents/
Observer Company, the publisher of one of the country’s leading newspapers, Daily Observer, has been confronting problems galore since the beginning of the second quarter of this year.
Amidst allegations of financial malfeasance, staff salaries have been paid late and many creditors have served pay-up notes. Then on June 14, the national tax authority (GRA) closed the paper for two weeks and demanded the payment of D17 million arrears.
After the statutory 14 days passed, the paper resumed publication but the head of GRA earlier this week told the press they are suing the newspaper company for a final determination on the recovery of the tax liabilities.
This same week, the Gambia Press Union, which has been brokering negotiations between the GRA and Observer Company, issued a public statement condemning the “incorrigible behaviour” of the Observer management and demanding a public clarification about the ownership of the company.
The managing director of Observer, Pa Modou Mbowe had publicly stated when asked at the beginning of Observer’s current travails in June that he does not know who owns the company he heads.
Yesterday, the Justice minister announced that government will be seeking a court order this morning to add the company to an ever-expanding list of assets belonging to the former President Jammeh.
The ownership of Observer has been a vexed question for many Gambians and media watchers.
The general perception has been that it was owned by the former president, Yahya Jammeh. However, when the list of his assets which were frozen was earlier released, Observer Company was conspicuously missing.
Investigations by this paper revealed that according to documents lodged at the office of the attorney general’s chambers in Banjul, the Observer Company is owned by Baba Jobe and his cousin Modou Sula Jobe, both now deceased.
Official documents state that on 21 October 2002, Buba Baldeh (also now deceased) serving as company secretary, filed a memorandum and articles of association for Observer Co. Ltd in which Baba K Jobe of Jarra Karantaba and Momodou Sula Jobe, were indicated as owning 990 shares and 10 shares of the 1,000 shares listed for the company.
An earlier file, dated 25 March 1999, showed an affidavit filed by Mr Amadou Samba stating him to be the owner of the business.
But sources close to the businessman who was a friend to Baba Jobe confirmed that Mr Samba had transferred ownership to Mr Jobe and demanded the removal of his name as proprietor printed on the bottom back of the paper.
Mr Samba, a former close associate of President Jammeh, originally bought the company from its founder Kenneth Y Best, a Liberian, who was deported by President Jammeh in October 1994.
Contacted for further clarification on June 18, Lamin AK Touray, the registrar of companies, told The Standard: “We have conducted a due diligence search on the said company [Observer] but realised that it is not incorporated and registered on the Single Window Business Registry system. There is no information under our historical records as well, which means it is neither incorporated nor registered with us [as a company].”
A former government official who requested anonymity, told The Standard: “The Observer was part of the collateral damage that Baba [Jobe] suffered when he fell out with Yahya Jammeh and was detained and jailed and later died in prison.”
The source alleged that President Jammeh appropriated Baba Jobe’s assets including compounds, lands, businesses, interests in the hospitality sector and even bank accounts.
Asked whether these “appropriated assets” were not in fact President’s Jammeh’s and held by Baba Jobe in proxy, he said: “What I know is that they were Baba’s properties. He owned them.”
Meanwhile, The Standard has learnt that the family of Mr Jobe led by his widow and brother had engaged the services of a lawyer to advise on their claim for retrieval of the Observer Company.
Another source told this paper that while the Observer Company may belong to Baba Jobe, the building housing the company “definitely belongs to Yahya Jammeh”.
It is interesting to note that since its establishment in 1992, the Observer Company has had 15 managing directors and all of them have been hired [except for Mr Best] and fired by President Jammeh or at his behest.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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toubab1020
12306 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jul 2017 : 22:06:28
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And yet another episode in the life of The Daily Observer,not wholely unexpected,note the second quote in my previous posting.
======================================================================
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
The country’s pioneer daily newspaper company, the Daily Observer, has come under fire from its own staff who are calling for the resignation of their managing director and the editor-in-chief.
Ministry of Justice has also secured an order from the high court of The Gambia, yesterday, to freeze the newspaper company as part of the assets of former President Yahya Jammeh.
The government is effectively putting the company under the management of an accounting firm, Augustus Prom.
On 14 May 2017, Observer’s offices were closed by the Gambia Revenue Authority, a consequence of tax evasion by the paper over the years.
The newspaper staff, in a petition delivered to the press yesterday evening, said it was “humiliating and disheartening for the staff of the company”.
“We are calling for the unconditional resignation of our managing director and editor-in-chief with immediate effect,” the Observer staff said in a petition read by Musa Ndow, one of the editors.
The petition was signed by over 80 per cent of the staff. One of the staff said only those of the ‘errand boys’ of the management refused to sign. The company has a staff of over a hundred, according to its management.
“We have lost confidence in their ability to lead us further and for us to continue to transform this paper, we need a leadership that is independent-minded and would not undermine the credibility of the staff, particularly the journalists,” Mr Ndow said as he read the petition.
Pa Modou Mbowe was appointed managing director of Daily Observer on 19 December 2016 at the height of the crisis. Momodou Saidy, who is the editor-in-chief, was also appointed the same day.
“All these happened at the height of the political crisis… their appointments came directly from the office of the then President, Yahya Jammeh. That is where their loyalties still lie,” a senior staff of the paper said.
After the closure, the country’s press union stepped in to negotiate dialogue between Daily Observer and the Gambia Revenue Authority. After several weeks, it was stalled without any success. The Gambia Press Union blamed the paper’s management for not cooperating in bringing a solution to the tax problem.
“We are in total disapproval of his negotiation skills over the matter; for it did more harm than good and the effects of such behaviour is hanging in flames for the staff,” the staff said.
The alleged further that they did not receive pay for two consecutive months which they blame on the MD’s “lack of competence to be at the helm of affairs”.
When contacted at about 9pm yesterday, Mr Mbowe said he had not received any petition letter from his staff to be able to know what their problems are.
“We were shut down in the middle of the month. That has affected our ability to pay the staff and recover our monies from numerous debtors,” he argued when asked about non-payment of two months’ salaries as decried by staff.
Mbowe said he would be willing to sit down with the staff to discuss these issues and find solutions.
“I always listen to them. I operated an open door policy and may be that is what they want to abuse because they never enjoyed that before,” he said.
However, he said he will not step down as managing director without any tangible reasons as the staff did not appoint him at the company’s head.
Author: Sanna Camara
http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/observer-management-under-fire
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quote:
Originally posted by toubab1020
A bit more progress .
".........he declared that the Observer is part of the additional companies of former President Jammeh, which his ministry has sought for freezing order."
"........ Observer continues to operate and perhaps what will change is the management of the paper,” he added.
The Attorney General and minister of Justice Abubacarr Tambadou has settled the dust about the ownership of the Observer Company, as he declared that the Observer is part of the additional companies of former President Jammeh, which his ministry has sought for freezing order.
Tambadou was speaking Thursday afternoon at a press conference held at the premises of his office where he further said: “We have now filed a supplemental list of assets before the High Court in Banjul for the inclusion of these newly discovered assets in the freezing order. So far, this new list includes 49 additional landed properties located in the Greater Banjul area bringing the total number of known landed properties owned by former President Yahya Jammeh to 180 in the country.”
He further stated that his ministry continues to receive additional information in respect of a significant number of assets purportedly belonging to former President Jammeh and his close associates. However, he added that they want to make sure that the reports they are getting about ownership of these latest assets are factual and accurate.
He said the list also includes some 6 or 7 bank accounts and 3 or 4 companies that they have recently discovered and the companies include the Daily Observer and his ministry’s intention was not to shut the Observer down. “It is not our intention to close down the Observer but we will find mechanisms as we have done in the other companies to ensure that the Observer continues to operate and perhaps what will change is the management of the paper,” he added.
by Fatou Sowe
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"Simple is good" & I strongly dislike politics. You cannot defend the indefensible.
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| Bantaba in Cyberspace |
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Dust has settled at the Daily Observer.
