Claim: President Adama Barrow says the Securiport deal is not problematic as it has to be in place and added that the only issue with it is the process which makes the deal flawed such as collecting physical cash from passengers at the airport. 

Source: President Adama Barrow

The Gambian president Adama Barrow took a trip to the United States to attend the 77^th session of the United Nations General Assembly meeting. He used the occasion to address some Gambians in New York on recent happenings in the country. In the said meeting, he also discussed the issue of Securiport, a U.S company that is controversially operating at the Banjul International Airport since 2017 collecting $20 from arriving and departing passengers.  

His comments came on the heels of a Malagen investigation that exposed how the government flouted procurement, tax, and public finance rules in signing and implementing the contract with Securiport, resulting in a loss of at least D274m of public funds to the state. 

In his first public statement on the issue, Barrow was quoted by a Sept. 26 Jamaano online article as saying:

“Regarding the security fee that’s being paid at the airport, when your airport is being assessed, the airport is rated according to its security. So, it has to be there. How it is collected is what is flawed. 

“We wanted it to be included in the ticket but for it to be in the ticket is not the prerogative of The Gambia. The ticketing system is international, so to include it there is difficult. 

“But we are trying to get it included because it is $20. And I know everyone in this country goes to The Gambia once every year I believe. 

“I believe it is reasonable that one gives D1,000 or D2,000 to The Gambia. We want people to pay because everyone wants development.”

Factcheck

In factchecking the above statements made by the president, Malagen media monitoring looks at several key problematic issues, including: 

1. Not everyone pays: The contract signed between the gov’t and Securiport provides exemption for 2-year-olds and below. However, diplomatic passport holders have not been paying the levy. While Barrow said ‘we want people to pay because everyone wants development,’ he himself may not be paying the levy after all. 

2. The contract was made illegally: The auditors have faulted various aspects of the airport security levy. The cash collection, which Barrow admitted as flawed, is just one minor issue as per the audit queries. The legitimacy of the contract was questioned in view of the following:

At the outset, the contract was single-sourced in violation of procurement rules. 

The tax exemption given to the company did not go through National Assembly approval. 

The attorney general, the chief legal adviser to the president, advised against signing the contract 

The payment of $4.5m being claimed by Securiport from the gov’t for the delayed start was queried as a violation of public finance rules. 

Verdict:

The comments made by President Adama Barrow are misleading.